Dynamic Warehousing Infrastructure - Establishing a Foundation to Meet New Information Requirements

Establishing a foundation to meet new information requirementsOctober 2007
The dynamic warehousing
infrastructure:
Establishing a foundation to meet
new information requirementsEstablishing a foundation to meet new information requirementsPage 
IntroductionTraditional data warehouses are increasingly being challenged by demands for real-time data access, analysis of structured and unstructured data, and the need to synchronize core customer and product information across operational systems to create a single view of the enterprise. These changes are the result of new business requirements to leverage enterprise information more effectively in order to:
. Identify new opportunities and deliver new products to market faster.. Optimize business processes through real-time information and analytics.. Provide increased visibility to business performance. . Meet industry compliance standards for reporting.
Yet most long-standing data warehouses are designed to support a relatively small number of users who access information to support strategic decisions, financial planning and the production of standard reports that track performance. Today, many more users need to access information in context and in-line so that critical functions are optimized to run efficiently. Information about customers-both structured and unstructured-must be analyzed and delivered wherever it is needed. Key performance indicators (KPIs) should also be available at all times to monitor performance. In short, business intelligence is becoming embedded in key business processes. Establishing a foundation to meet new information requirementsPage 
To create a true enterprise view of information that supports strategic and operational functions, enterprise data warehouses must be reinvented as a dynamic source of current and historical information. Dynamic warehousing is an approach that enables organizations to deliver more dynamic business insights by integrating, transforming, harvesting and analyzing insights from structured and unstructured information. Capable of processing large amounts of information, a dynamic warehousing infrastructure can enable organizations to respond on demand to unscheduled analysis requests, and as events trigger the need for information throughout the day.
A key component of a dynamic warehousing environment is the data warehouse platform. To implement a dynamic warehouse, the platform should be able to:
. Process transactions and analytical requests.. Handle varying service level agreements (SLA).. Scale easily as the number of applications grows. . Analyze structured as well as unstructured data. . Provide real-time analytics that can be embedded in business processes.. Support advanced analytics such as data mining within the data warehouse.Establishing a foundation to meet new information requirementsPage 
But the requirements for dynamic warehousing go well beyond having the right data warehouse platform. Dynamic warehousing requires an extended infrastructure (Figure 1) to:
. Implement changes to the business model without impacting usage.. Monitor and analyze data sources for structure and content to ensure the best data is being accessed for each application.. Provide tools that enable business users and IT staff to collaborate on data requirements and definitions.. Deliver impact analysis and data lineage reports to coordinate changes and provide visibility to critical data flows.. Deliver data that has been cleansed and harmonized to the warehouse regardless of volume or latency requirements.IBM Information Management. Synchronize master data for key business entities across operational systems.
Dynamic WarehousingAnewarchitecturetoenableinformationondemand
Process Mgmt. MDM Search and TextData Warehouse Analytics
Information Integration Services Enterprise DataIndustry Models Modeling
© 2007 IBM CorporationFigure 1: Dynamic warehousing has an extended infrastructure that leverages metadata to extend the data warehouse to operational systems as well as traditional business intelligence applications.Establishing a foundation to meet new information requirementsPage 
This white paper outlines the options and decision criteria for selecting the right components that define the extended infrastructure for dynamic warehousing, including how to:
. Acces... [download for more]