Chapter 3 - Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Flashcards
What are the 9 fundamental characteristics of Data Warehousing? (1-4)
Subject oriented
Integrated
Time variant (time series)
Nonvolatile
What are the 9 fundamental characteristics of Data Warehousing? (5-9)
Web based
Rational/multidimensional
Client/server
Real time
Includes metadata
What is a data mart?
A smaller data warehouse that focuses on a particular subject or department
What is an Operational Data Store?
A database that is used as an interim staging area for a data warehouse. Used for short-term decisions involving mission-critical applications rather than medium and long-term decisions.
What is an Enterprise Data Warehouse?
A large-scale data warehouse used across the enterprise for decision support
What is metadata?
Data about data. Describes the structure of and some meaning about data, thereby contributing to their effectiveness.
What are the 6 major components of the data warehousing process?
Data sources
Data extraction and transformation
Data loading
Comprehensive database
Metadata
Middleware Tools
What are the 5 alternative data warehousing architectures?
Independent data marts
Data mart bus architecture
Hub-and-spoke architecture
Centralized data warehouse
Federated data warehouse
How do Independent Data Marts approach data warehousing?
The DMs are developed to operate independent of each other to serve the needs of the individual organizational units.
How does Data Mart Bus Architecture approach data warehousing?
The individual data marts are linked to each other via some kind of middleware
How does Hub-and-Spoke Architecture approach data warehousing?
The focus is building a scalable and maintainable infrastructure that includes a centralized data warehouse and several dependent DMs.
How do Centralized Data Warehouses approach data warehousing?
There is a gigantic, centralized EDW that serves the needs of all organizational units.
How do Federated Data Warehouses approach data warehousing?
They use all possible means to integrate analytical resources from multiple sources to meet changing needs or business conditions.
What is the ETL process?
ETL stands for Extraction, Transformation, and Load. It involves reading the data, converting into the form that it needs to be so it can be used, and loading it into the data warehouse.
What does Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) mean?
It involves integrating application functionality and provides a vehicle for pushing data from source systems into the DW.
What does Enterprise Information Integration (EII) mean?
It is a mechanism for pulling data from source systems to satisfy a request for information.
What is the difference of EAI and EII?
EAI is more focused on creating flexibility and reuse and EII is more focused on the speed of pulling data.
What is Dimensional Modeling?
A retrieval-based system that supports high-volume query access.
What is a Star Schema?
It is a style of dimensional modeling. It contains a central fact table that is surrounded by and connected to several dimension tables.
What are Dimension Tables?
Dimensions tables contain attributes that describe the data contained within the fact table. They address how data will be analyzed and summarized. Dimension tables have a one-to-many relationship with rows in the central fact table.
What is a Snowflake Schema?
A logical arrangement of tables in a multidimensional database in such a way that the entry-relationship diagram resembles a snowflake in shape.
What are the differences between OLAP and OLTP?
OLTP captures and stores data related to day-to-day business functions, but the systems are not designed for ad hoc analysis and complex queries like OLAPs are. The two systems do rely heavily on each other.
What are the 5 commonly used OLAP operations?
Slice
Dice
Drill Down/Up
Roll-up
Pivot
What is a BPM? What is a performance measurement system as it relates to BPMs?
BPM is Business Performance Management. A performance management system assists managers in tracking the implementations of business strategy by comparing actual results against strategic goals and objectives.
What is a KPI?
A Key Performance Indicator. KPIs represent strategic objectives and measure performance against a goal.
What are the 10 differing types of KPIs and what do they represent? (1-6)
Strategy - KPIs embody a strategic objective
Targets - Measure performance against specific targets
Ranges - Targets have performance ranges
Encodings - Ranges are encoded in software, enabling the visual display of performance
Time Frames - When the targets must be accomplished
Benchmarks - Targets measured against a baseline
What are the 10 differing types of KPIs and what do they represent? (7-10)
Customer Performance - Metrics for customer satisfaction and retention
Service Performance - Metrics for service-call resolution rates, service renewal rates, delivery performance, etc.
Sales Operations - New accounts, sales meetings secured, conversions of inquiries to leads, and average call closure time
Sales Plan/Forecast - Metris for price-to-purchase accuracy, purchase order-to-fulfillment ratio, quantity earned
What is a BSC?
A balanced scorecard is a widely used performance management system that views the organization from four perspectives.
What is Balance as it relates to BSC?
Balance is achieved by translating the org’s vision and strategy into a set of interrelated financial and nonfinancial objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives.
What are the four BSC perspectives?
Financial
Customer
Internal/Business Processes
Learning and Growth
What are the 3 Nonfinancial BSC Perspectives?
Internal/Business Processes
Customer
Learning and Growth
What is Six Sigma?
It is a performance management methodology aimed at reducing the number of defects in a business process as close to zero DPMO as possible
What is the DMAIC performance model?
Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control
What is the summarized difference between BSC and Six Sigma?
BSC is focused on improving overall strategy whereas Six Sigma is focused on improving processes.
