Chapter 8 : Accessing Organizational Information - Data Warehouse

History of Data Warehouse

• The data warehouse provided the ability to support decision making without disrupting the day-to-day operations, because:
• Operational information is mainly current – does not include the history for better decision making
• Issue of quality information
• Without information history, it is difficult to tell how and why things change over time

Data Warehouse Fundamentals

• Data warehouse – a logical collection of information – gathered from many different operational databases – that supports business analysis activities and decision-making tasks
• The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to combined information throughout an organization into a single repository for decision-making purposes – data warehouse support only analytical processing
• Data warehouse models

• Multidimensional Analysis and Data Mining - relational Database contain information in a series of two-dimensional tables

• In a data warehouse and data mart, information is multidimensional, it contains layers of columns and rows
• Dimension – a particular attribute of information

• Cube – common term for the representation of multidimensional information
• Once a cube of information is created, users can begin to slice and dice the cube to drill down into the information
• Users can analyse information in a number of different ways and with number of different dimensions

Multidimensional Analysis and Data Mining

• Data mining – the process of analysing data to extract information not offered by the raw data alone. Also known as "knowledge discovery" – computer-assisted tools and techniques for sifting through and analysing vast data stores in order to find trends, patterns, and correlations that can guide decision making and increase understanding
• To perform data mining users need data-mining tools
• Data-mining tool – uses a variety of techniques to find patterns and relationships in large volumes of information. Examples: retailers can use knowledge of these patterns to improve the placement of items in the layout of a mail-order catalogue page or Web page

Information Cleansing or Scrubbing

• An organization must maintain high-quality data in the data warehouse
• Information cleansing or scrubbing – a process that weeds out and fixes or discards inconsistent, incorrect, or incomplete information
• Occur during ETL process and second on the information once if is in the data warehouse
• Contact information in an operational system

• Standardizing Customer name from Operational Systems

• Information cleansing activities

• Accurate and complete information

Business Intelligence

• Business intelligence – refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access, analyze data, and information to support decision making effort
• these systems will illustrate business intelligence in the areas of customer profiling, customer support, market research, market segmentation, product profitability, statistical analysis, and inventory and distribution analysis to name a few
• Eg: Excel, Access 

Chapter 7 : Storing Organizational Information - Database

Relational Database Fundamentals

• Database – maintains information about various types of objects (inventory), events (transactions), people (employees), and places (warehouses)
• Database models include:
• Hierarchical database model – information is organized into a tree-like structure (using parent/child relationships) in such a way that it cannot have too many relationships
• Network database model – a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships
• Relational database model – stores information in the form of logically related two-dimensional tables
• Entity – a person, place, thing, transaction, or event about which information is stored
• The rows in each table contain the entities
• In Figure 7.1 CUSTOMER includes Dave’s Sub Shop and Pizza Palace entities
• Attributes (fields & columns) - characteristics or properties of an entity class
• The columns in each table contain the attributes
• In Figure 7.1 attributes for CUSTOMER include Customer ID, Customer Name, Contact Name
• Primary keys and foreign keys identify the various entity classes (tables) in the database
• Foreign key – a primary key of one table that appears an attribute in another table and acts to provide a logical relationship among the two tables
• Primary key – a field (or group of fields) that uniquely identifies a given entity in a table

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  Potential Relational Database for Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Egypt

Relational Database Advantages

• Increased flexibility
• Increased scalability and performance
• Reduced information redundancy
• Increased information integrity (quality)
• Increased information security

Database Management Systems (DBMS)

• Database management systems (DBMS) – software through which users and application programs interact with a database 

• Data-driven Web sites – an interactive Web site kept constantly updated and relevant to the needs of its customers through the use of a database

• Data Driven Web Site Advantages
• Development
• Content Management
• Future Expandability
• Minimizing Human Error
• Cutting Production and Update Costs
• More Efficient
• Improved Stability
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• Data-Driven Business Intelligence

Integrating Information among Multiple Devices

• Integration – allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other
• Forward integration – takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream systems and processes
• Backward integration – takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes

• Building a central repository specifically for integrated information