Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lml who wrote (6852)	4/8/1998 11:15:00 AM
From: MrJoltCola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

"So ... as far as data warehousing & data marts, can anyone other than Richard provide a concise synopsis. I would greatly appreciate -- and Richard might, too." "Data warehousing" is the big buzzword of the late 90's which basically just describes a system of both storing data and the processes/people that massage the data and make it readily accessible for business decisions. It's nothing new under the sun. This is, of course, my definition, the book definitions vary. The funny thing is, everyone is talking about data warehouses, but few people are actually doing it. As an aside, generally, "true" data warehouses are large, enterprise level systems which may use a distributed design and many server level extensions. This is where ORACLE shines and it is also where Microsoft is non-existent for now.

To: lml who wrote (6852)	4/8/1998 1:01:00 PM
From: AnnieK	Respond to of 19080

Data warehouse definition (from Oracle's web site): A data warehouse is a new way to use information technology to help knowledge workers --executives, managers, financial analysts, etc.-- find and analyze the information they need to make faster and better informed decisions. The data warehouse can contain data from a number of operational databases and external data. The data warehouse is maintained separately from an organization's OLTP databases to minimize the impact that queries have on operational systems and safeguard operational data from being changed or lost. The data warehouse also allows administrators to combine fields from different systems to create new, subject-oriented data that end users can access directly using powerful graphical query and reporting tools. This enables users to navigate large corporate data stores in an ad hoc, interactive fashion without disturbing the production data. Data warehouses have four key characteristics: Subject-oriented data warehouses are oriented toward subjects (e.g., product, customer, orders, shipments) instead of around applications (e.g., general ledger or payroll). This makes a data warehouse a flexible information resource for questions that no one has asked before rather than just questions in a pre-determined area. Integrated data warehouses reconcile the different data representations in various operational databases used by most companies. Time-variant data warehouses maintain historical data (typically three to five years of data) so that knowledge workers can do trend analysis over time. Non-volatile data warehouses are normally read-only environments that are updated only on a nightly or weekend basis. ---- Having said all that, the data warehouses I've seen have been created by large manufacturing, financial services, retail and distribution corporations. The database design is typically denormalized to contain both detail and summary information, so that results can easily be reported at a high level & then drilled down. Significant amounts of disk space and CPU power are required. Hope this helps to answer your question.

To: lml who wrote (6852)	4/8/1998 7:25:00 PM
From: Brian Moore	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 19080

OK, here's a clear description of what a data warehouse is: Most Oracle databases are used by "worker bees," who enter single pieces of information into the database. Example: Someone takes your reservation to stay at a hotel -- it goes into an Oracle database. But what if a senior manager wants to see a one page summary of millions of pieces of information? Example: Which hotel had the greatest increase in sales last month? Well, here's what happens.... The worker bee's Oracle database was made by programmers to be very efficient -- for the worker bees, who put in one record at a time. But the manager's report requires pulling together and summarizing millions of records. It might take hours to do this, and it will slow down the database for all the worker bees too. The solution is to create a second Oracle database on a new computer. Every night data from the worker bee's database is poured in. Next morning the manager can run that report using this new database (called a Data Warehouse). It's fast because it is specifically programmed to sort through millions of records and produce a summary. And because it is on a separate computer it does not interfere with the work of the worker bees. Data warehouses are great for Oracle. They get to sell another database to the company. And Data Marts? That's the same idea as a data warehouse, except that instead of attempting to contain all information for the company like a Data Warehouse, a Data Mart is smaller, containing only the information of interest to one department.