A data warehouse is specifically designed to aggregate and centralise an organisation’s data from different sources, which makes the data easier to access and analyse. Data warehouses are usually used to house large amounts of historical data that can be analysed and queried by data engineers and business intelligence (BI) experts. The resulting BI can then be used to help companies make better-informed business decisions.
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If you don’t have a data warehouse within your business, chances are your data is in various places, such as transactional systems, relational databases and operational databases. A data warehouse will bring all your disparate data from across your entire business into one place. The real beauty of data warehousing is that once all your data is housed in one, everyone in your organisation can access and use the same data, giving your business a single version of the truth.
Bring data together for easy access and analysis
Having all your data in one place is hugely beneficial from a BI perspective because you can:
- Analyse related data from different areas of the business
- Make more accurate predictions
- Make better-informed business decisions to drive commercial success.
If you’re considering data warehouse solutions for your company, you can either have an on-premise system that can be built and managed at your company’s physical location, or you could choose a cloud data warehouse that runs online without any need for hardware. Cloud-based data warehouses tend to be simpler to manage, especially in terms of implementation and scaling. In addition, a cloud data warehouse will usually be less expensive than an on-premise system.
Why should you invest in a data warehouse?
Do you need deeper data insights than your current analytics tools provide? If so, it may be time to invest in a data warehouse, because your analysts will be able to dive deeper into the data than they can with individual databases and disparate data sources spread around your business.
You really should be considering data warehousing if you’re looking to house all your historical data in one purpose-built central repository where you’ll be able to analyse your applications together in the same place. With a data warehouse, your data analysts will gain greater value from your data than they can with traditional analytics systems. Plus, a data warehouse will provide multiple people across your business with access to the same data set at the same time.
Take your data analytics to the next level
If your executives are asking difficult analytical questions but your current data analytics tools can’t provide the answers, it’s time to invest in a data warehouse. Imagine running reports and analyses in your new data warehouse – you can easily include elements from any or all the individual data sources you have connected to your data warehouse. In other words, a data warehouse will give your organisation truly integrated data from all your platforms.
How does a data warehouse differ from a data lake?
Data lakes are used to store all an organisation’s raw data, which may not have been assigned an intended use case. Data warehouse solutions hold data that has already been prepared, processed and filtered, which means the data in the warehouse is ready to be used and analysed. Data lakes are an ideal repository for an organisation to store all its raw data indefinitely, until data scientists and analysts decide what they are going to do with it.
A data lake can also be used as a repository to store large amounts of data that is unstructured (Word files, Excel spreadsheets and so forth). Data warehouse solutions are ideal when you want to provide all your employees with access to structured and semi-structured data, while enabling them to effectively run queries against that data and make faster business decisions.
Build a data warehouse to make better-informed decisions
Many enterprises are currently working with Dufrain’s dedicated Data Warehousing team, rather than employing someone full-time to build and manage their own data warehouse inhouse. With a wealth of experience, Dufrain’s consultants can deliver a data warehouse that will accelerate your data-driven journey.