Data is something that we understand and enjoy. We’ve been doing data warehousing and business intelligence (BI) for years, and have handled some very large data marts. Our preferred database platform is Microsoft SQL Server and we have experience in several other data platforms including Oracle.
So what is a data warehouse?
A data warehouse is a repository of an organisation's electronically stored data. Data warehouses are designed to facilitate reporting and analysis of data that is usually generated from online transaction processing systems (OLTP’s). One can say that a data warehouse takes raw structured data and transforms it into information that can be studied and understood.
For more information see:
What Data?
Most of the data comes from online transaction processing systems (OLTP’s) and the source data can be in many different formats. Sometimes the data is not even structured correctly. Sometimes the integrity of the data is poor. Some data may come from other data warehouses or data marts.
Data should be extracted from the source system, transformed into something usable and loaded into the data warehouse in a standardised, consistent, clean and integrated form, structured in a way to specifically address the reporting and analytic requirements of the organisation.
Examples of data:
- Sales
- Customer
- Product
- CRM
- Telephony
- Pedigree
- Grouping and categorisation
Data Integrity
Often the data needs to be checked and fixed before it’s of real use. Sometimes this checking and fixing will be a long term or even continuous project.
See ….
Data Integrity
OK, interesting waffle but what do we really offer?
We’ve built a number of data warehouses ranging from very small to very large. We’ve dealt with a number of different cultures and language sets. We’ve dealt with an amazing range of data.
We’re really good at data.
We can build a data warehouse for you, a central repository of your organisations data. We’ll create the incoming feeds (where possible fully automated). We’ll handle the data integrity issues if you don’t have the resources to do it. We’ll structure the data so that it provides you with information that enables you to learn and plan – in essence to make decisions. We’ll construct reports that make this possible. We can take it a step further and provide you with analytical tools (using OLAP) to slice ‘n dice the data in a number of ways. We’ll provide you with dashboards and graphical displays.
What tools do we use?
Our preference is to use Microsoft SQL Server, including the following components:
- SSDS (data server)
- SSIS (integration services for data feeds)
- SSAS (analysis services for OLAP)
- SSRS (reporting services)
Using these tools we’ll implement data mining.
One of our favorite tools is Microsoft Excel. We’ve developed many outputs using this incredibly popular tool using it’s built-in programming language (VBA).
If you have any data queries or requirements, please feel free to contact us for more information on solving your data solution. We’d love to hear from you!