Data Warehouse is a type of database system that is designed to store, manage, and analyze large collections of data. It is typically used for data analysis and decision making, reporting, and business intelligence. Data Warehouse models typically incorporate a broad range of data sources, including relational databases, online transaction processing (OLTP) systems, text files, and other information sources.
Data Warehouse systems are designed to support the analysis of large-scale data, such as financial and operational data, in the context of long-term decision-making. The underlying architecture of a Data Warehouse system typically consists of terabytes or petabytes of data storage and high-performance processing capacity. Advanced Data Warehouse systems also support dynamic query optimization, a technique whereby queries are optimized to minimize the amount of data being accessed and/or the amount of resources needed to process the data.
Data Warehouse systems are typically deployed in enterprise environments and can vary in size and complexity depending on the data sources and workloads. The types of data stored in a Data Warehouse system range from organizational-specific data (such as customer and financial records) to third-party data (such as weather, stock market, or demographic information).
Data Warehouse systems are typically built to adhere to established dimensional modeling principles, which involve organizing related data into logical groups called dimensions. This type of organization helps to improve the performance of queries and greatly facilitates the analysis of large data sets. Dimensional modeling is typically used to categorize and organize data into facts (numeric values) and dimensions (the categories or attributes associated with a particular fact).
Data Warehouse systems also typically use star schemas, which represent a hierarchal structure of data within a Data Warehouse. Star schemas consist of a fact table, which contains the numeric values of each fact, and multiple dimension tables, which contain information about the dimensions associated with each fact.
Data Warehouse systems can be used for a variety of tasks, including data mining, forecasting, and predictive analytics. By providing an integrated view of organizational data and real-time insights, Data Warehouse systems can help organizations make better business decisions and improve productivity.
