ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the major concepts and issues that surround data warehouse design. Although several warehousing architectures exist, the chapter focuses on the most common design forms. It also introduces online analytical processing—a powerful multidimensional analytics tool. One can learn about the inherent problems in analyzing data stored in a transactional database. The chapter defines data warehousing and details a popular model for data warehouse design. It shows how online analytical processing can be used to test human-generated hypotheses about data stored in a warehouse. The chapter also provides an introduction to MS Excel pivot tables. It discusses two methods that have been developed for organizing a data warehouse. One method structures the data as a multidimensional array. A second method uses the relational model for data storage and retrieval. The primary function of warehoused data is decision support. Three categories of decision support are reporting data, online analytical processing, and data analytics.
