It is obvious that there is no organization running without data. The data can be viewed as tangible assets of an organization just as any physical asset. So, they need to be stored and made available to those who need them when they need them. However, the data by themselves are useless. So, they must be put together to produce useful information. In turn, information becomes the basis for relational decision making. To facilitate the decision-making process, a new development of database systems was developed called “data warehouse”. The data warehouse can be generally described as a decision-support tool that collects its data from operational databases and various external sources, transforms them into information and making that information available to decision-makers (top managers) in a consolidated and consistent manner. (2:64)(4:82)BACKGROUNDThe data warehouse is not more than a database but separated from other databases like the operational database distributed database and text database. When did management start to utilize this powerful tool and why they seek to use it.The data warehouse has been developed at the beginning of 1980s. However, it was optimize to transform non-organized and lightly summarized data from the operational database into analytical tool that supports intelligent decision-making. (6:19)The term DSS (Decision support system) database is used interchangeably with the data warehouse. On the other hand, other names for the operational database are transactional database and production database.WHAT IS A DATA WAREHOUSE?The data warehouse can be very simply defined as an integrated, subject-oriented, time variant and non-volatile database that provides support for decision-making (5:39) (6:19). The following four sections will explain what this definition means.Integration The data warehouse is a centralized database that integrates data from different sources (6:19) with diverse formats. T...
