The goal of online data warehouses is to consolidate data in a stable, standardized system that is accessible to all relevant employees to assist in making decisions. They also provide a historical archive of data and serve as a single source of truth, so users can examine data from various sources without relying on outdated data.
When it comes to selecting the right platform, architecture and tools for the data warehouse, there are many factors to consider. Should the warehouse, for instance, be on-premises? Should it use extract transform and load (ETL) or direct-to-database integration? How often should data be refreshed? How will the change data capture feature be used to record and feed updates into the warehouse? In the end, choosing the appropriate technologies should be based on the business’s specific business use cases.
A bicycle manufacturer, for instance might use its data store to gain insight into actual customer preferences. It might find that women over 50 make up a majority of its customers, and might be interested in knowing more about the shops which they prefer to shop for bicycles. This data could assist the company improve its marketing and development efforts.
A team of IT professionals could utilize their data warehouse to aid auditing processes and regulatory compliance by providing historical records that can be reviewed. This could help save time and resources by eliminating redundant data.