{"id":48049,"date":"2017-02-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/data-warehousing-101\/"},"modified":"2017-06-19T18:36:13","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T18:36:13","slug":"data-warehousing-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/2\/28470\/enterprise\/data-centers\/data-warehousing-101","title":{"rendered":"Data Warehousing 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many businesses continuously collect large amounts of data. But in order to use that information, a functional set of processes and procedures must be put in place to make sense of it.\n<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re a data warehouse<\/a> developer or you’re hearing the term data warehousing for the first time, understanding the basics of data warehousing \u2013 including what it means, how it’s used and the benefits it can provide \u2013 is essential.\n<\/p>\n

Once data is properly analyzed, it can be used to create a clearer picture of the positive and negative impacts that common trends and patterns have on an enterprise. That sounds simple enough, but ensuring that data is useful is one of the major challenges in data warehousing.\n<\/p>\n

What Is Data Warehousing?<\/span><\/h2>\n

A data warehouse is a centralized storage unit (database<\/a>) that defines and assembles data and all its in-depth details. These details might include information pertaining to an organization’s customer base, service providers<\/a>, suppliers, transactions or business processes<\/a> through the use of an integrated data model<\/a>. (To learn about business process management, see BPM and SOA: How They Drive Business<\/a>.)\n<\/p>\n

Data warehousing pulls data from various sources that are made available across an enterprise; this data can then be analyzed in a variety of different ways. A data warehouse is an integrated, nonvolatile, time-variant and subject-oriented collection of information. What this means is that a data warehouse should achieve the following goals:\n<\/p>\n