- R. Kimball - “a data mart is a flexible set of data, ideally based on the most atomic (granular) data possible to extract from operational source, and presented in a symmetric (dimensional) model that is resilient when faced with unexpected user queries”
- “in its most simplistic form a data mart represent data from a single business process” Business process = purchase order, store inventory, etc Definitions
A reporting system designed to allow different flexible analysis in real time, on-line, with data structures designed for fast retrieval, with redundancy included to support performance. Note: “On-line” doesn’t indicate data from on-line systems, rather on-the-fly
- Drill-down - decreasing the level of aggregation
- Drill-up/Roll-up - increasing the level of aggregation
- Drill-across - move between different star-join schemas using conformed dimensions and joins
- Slicing and dicing – ability to look at the database from different views, e.g. one slice shows all sales of product type within regions, another slice shows all sales by sales channel within each product type
- Pivoting - e.g. change columns to rows, rows to columns
- Ranking - sorting
Forrester definition: A process of transforming data into information and making it available to users in time to make a difference.
- Who: strategic leaders
- What: formulate strategy and monitor corporate performance.
- Who: operational managers
- What: execution of strategy againts objectives.
- Who: analysts, knowledge worker, controller
- What: ad-hoc analysis.
