Data warehousing: dealing with the growing pains

A data warehouse provides a customer with information to run and plan their business. It is true that if the data warehouse cannot quickly adapt to changes in the environment then the company will lose the advantage that information provides. A warehouse must be built with a solid foundation that is flexible and responsive to business changes. The purpose of the paper is to share experiences in the area of managing the growth within the data warehouse. There are many technical issues that need to be addressed as the data warehouse grows in multiple dimensions. The ideas in this paper should enable you to provide the correct foundation for a long term warehouse. Very few companies are discussing these issues and the lack of discussion leads to a lack of knowledge that will further lead to poor architectural choices. The paper articulates not only the benefits that are derived from data warehousing today but how to prepare to reap benefits for many tomorrow´s. It also explores the questions to ask, the points to make, and the issues to be addressed to have a long term successful data warehouse project