Data Warehouse

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The Data Warehousing Information Center

Dimensional Modeling

The Data Warehouse contains intelligent data collections which are modeled to support the reporting and analysis needs of DSS users. Consequently, not ALL institutional data is available from the Data Warehouse.

For those who develop or maintain institutional data systems, who want to make their data available to a wider audience of users, the Data Warehouse offers a central location where staff, faculty and even students can access information for all their reporting needs.

The main goals of our Data Warehouse are:

understand the users needs by business area, job responsibilities, and computer tolerance
determine the decisions the business users want to make with the help of the data warehouse
choose the most effective, actionable subset of the OLTP data to present in the data warehouse, drawn from the vast universe of possible data in the organization
make sure the data is accurate and can be trusted, labeling it consistently across the enterprise
continuously monitor the accuracy of the data and the content of the delivered reports
publish the data on a regular basis

The main components of the Data Warehouse are:

OLTP Sources
Operational Data Store - Data Staging area
Data presentation

The OLTP sources are the operational systems of record that capture the transactions of the business. The source systems are outside of the data warehouse as we have little to no control over the content and format of the data in these operational systems.

The Operational Data Store area of the data warehouse is both a storage area and a set of processes commonly referred to as extract-transformation-load (ETL). The staging area is everything between the operational source systems and the data presentation area. The key architectural requirement for the data staging area is that it is off-limits to business users and does not provide query and presentation services. The only users who are allowed access to the ODS are select Data Managers and the DSS developers. The access to the ODS is to be used only for troubleshooting purposes or design of data structures needed for reporting.

The data presentation area is where data is organized, stored, and made available for:

direct querying by users and report writers
access via the IUIE application

Dimensional Modeling

March 1-2, 2004, a class on dimensional data warehouse design called "Data Warehouse Design - Detail to Analytics" was conducted by Mike Schmitz for the DSS Team and other related developers. For those attending the class, the updated class materials and problem solutions can be downloaded below. A valid IU Network ID is necessary to authenticate and access the documents.