| The primary reason that corporations introduce Six | | | | clogged straining server resources. Then there are |
| Sigma into data warehousing boils down to cost | | | | some other factors that have a play in affecting the |
| reduction. Large corporations are incurring huge | | | | performance of ETL. |
| expenditures, most of the times running into millions | | | | Meeting the Challenge to Quantify the Data |
| of dollars, which eats into stakeholders' margin, in | | | | Warehouse Effect |
| creating and maintaining data warehouses. The | | | | Quantifying the effects of data warehouse is to |
| criticality of data warehouses can be understood by | | | | project whether challenges can be scaled. The recent |
| their vital role in support to prediction of business | | | | trend in data warehouse development is to treat |
| performance. | | | | them as belonging to the same family or group. |
| There is no denying the fact that data warehousing | | | | Consider dedicating each family to a particular |
| is in a way, the powerhouse of Six Sigma | | | | geographical location, and other subsets of respective |
| deployment. In early stages of projects, data | | | | hierarchical data. Warehousing modules for individual |
| warehousing allows for better planning of | | | | data groups (families) are developed at their initial |
| deployment, design and tuning of the production | | | | stages and new ones are taken care off as and |
| environment. | | | | when they arise and are just plugged into the main |
| Data Warehousing Basics | | | | data warehouse. The database could contain three |
| Data warehousing components are complex in nature | | | | fundamental tables such as tables to store attributes |
| and are multifaceted. The various components are | | | | of data; storage of linking information; and finally, |
| either developed in house or by a third party or in | | | | aggregated data ready for use. |
| joint development at the party's place of business. | | | | Applying Six Sigma Elements into Software |
| Typically, designers focus on functional and business | | | | Development |
| needs and not on performance constraints faced by | | | | Applying Six Sigma elements into software |
| the production environment. The consequence of this | | | | development typically helps in identifying potential |
| costly mistake is the possibility of missing deadlines | | | | problems in production if the development is done in |
| and reworking the project, which are manifestations | | | | the early stages of the project. Secondly, the |
| of operational inefficiencies. | | | | mammoth task of data warehousing can return |
| Challenges to Data Warehouse Design | | | | positive results if deployment plans are fine tuned |
| It is not new that modern day data warehouses are | | | | before implementation. |
| built for auto refreshing and/or compatible for at | | | | The self-assessing nature and the provisions for |
| least real time updating. ETL, as extraction, | | | | internal auditing shed light on the course of |
| transformation and loading of data flow is a very | | | | implementation. At the same time, one cannot forget |
| resource-consuming exercise in data warehousing. | | | | that databases developed remain tied to the system |
| The importance of data warehousing increases | | | | architecture on which they are built and bear heavily |
| several times, considering the fact that data | | | | on the accuracy of predictions in a fluctuating |
| structures are both strategic and functional. | | | | business environment, ironically for which they are |
| Even the real time refreshing of data becomes a | | | | built. |
| daunting task with the refresh window getting | | | | |