Real-Time Data Warehousing: Enabling Operational and Active Data Warehouses for Improved Business Intelligence

Abstract: Gone are the days when Data Warehouses were just for reporting, analytics, and forecasting. Today, more companies are working hard to make their data warehouses operational and active -- and thus more critical to the business. An important requirement is to enable lowest possible latency in which new data is delivered to the data warehouse, ideally in real time. And this new requirement for "fresher data" must often be given careful consideration when investments in batch-oriented ETL technologies already exist.

Why is fresher, real-time data so crucial? In order to determine and influence what should happen next, the enterprise data warehouse needs to know what is happening right now. There are many data integration technologies that serve the data acquisition needs of a data warehouse, and the demand for low-latency data is causing the IT group to evaluate a range of approaches: intra-day ETL batches, mini-batches, EAI, and real-time change data capture techniques. The challenge is to determine what solution or combination of solutions will meet the trend for faster data delivery needs, which will propel the move to operational and active data warehousing.

This paper will review the trends that are driving the data warehouse towards real-time data requirements, examples of the business value, evaluation of data acquisition technologies and approaches, an overview of GoldenGate's technology solution for real-time data warehousing, and real-world examples of GoldenGate customers who have been leading the trend in this area.

Table of Contents

Section

1. Introduction: The Data Warehouse and "Real Time"
2. The Data Warehouse Evolution: From Reporting to Active Decision Support for Front-Line Users
3. • The five stages of data warehousing
   • Industry analyst observations
   • Examples of business value, benefits
4. Data Acquisition Approaches for the Real-Time Enterprise
   • Comparing scripts, ETL, EAI, and CDC via Transactional Data Management
   • Data transformations - Where do they belong?
5. GoldenGate TDM for Real-Time Data Warehousing
   • How GoldenGate's Real-Time Data Warehousing Works
     • Data Capture
     • Data Delivery
     • Transformations
     • Heterogeneity
     • Flexibility
     • Manageability
   • Combining GoldenGate TDM with ETL
6. Customers: Real-Time Data Warehouses in the Real World
7. Summary and About GoldenGate
8. Contact Information

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