The Rationale For Developing a Corporate Data Warehouse and The Development of a Model For Sharing Data In a Data Warehouse Environment

Abstract

In this paper, we briefly examine the background to data warehousing, and the rationale for implementing such a system. While there are several issues involved in the implementation of a data warehouse project, this paper concentrates on the aspect of developing a corporate data model. A particular design process for an enterprise data model proposed by [SCHE92] is examined. A model is then presented for sharing data across applications on a common platform, such as a data warehouse, using the design process outlined. The basis of the argument in favour of data sharing in this manner is firstly, interfaces will already have been defined between the operational database systems and the data warehouse. Secondly, all the data from the operational systems already populate the data warehouse tables. Thirdly, the process of preparing data for migration to the data warehouse will already have solved many of the problems associated with enterprise data modeling, such as determining exactly where a data item resides and what exactly it means. Finally, data sharing can be achieved without having to develop micro-level models of the whole enterprise.