Data Warehousing (DW) and Business Intelligence (BI) are the two main pillars of Information Management. They enable business users and increasingly executives to make informed decisions by arming them with information that can be sliced and diced by various dimensions like customer, region, date & time and product etc. 

An Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) is a centralized repository of all enterprise level information that provides its users with a single seamless view of data across all business units in an enterprise and allows them to look at data at various points in time. Data Warehousing refers to the collection of processes, methods, tools, structures that are used to build and maintain a Data Warehouse.

A Data Warehouse solution can be made up of several components and activities. 
The following are the typical components of a Data Warehouse: 

• A subject area based relational data warehouse, which is the central data store that contains data from various source systems
• One or more multidimensional data marts that store information about individual subjects areas like sales, inventory, finance, human resources, etc.
• Data integration processes, which are typically, implemented using an ETL tool where data from several source systems are staged, conformed, integrated, and loaded to the Data Warehouse.
• An analytical reporting platform, which is used by the user to access the data in the ware house for analysis and reporting.

The following components are part of a mature Data Warehouse:

• An Operational Data Store (ODS), which contains only the current integrated data from several source systems.
• A Master Data Management (MDM) hub that hosts and manages important data like customer information and product information.
• A Metadata Repository that contains detailed information about the various business entities, business rules, data lineage, etc.
• A privacy and security layer that is used to implement the privacy and security rules that control access to data.

Information is one of the most valuable assets of an organization. The ability to effectively analyze and enrich data and report intelligently helps organizations achieve operational excellence. Managing these assets properly not only increases productivity but reduces risk dramatically. Data warehousing and Business intelligence being the corner stones of Information management are critical to the success of an organization. They provide businesses the information they need to drive predictability, accountability and to manage operational risk.

Data Warehousing and BI have several benefits:

• Provides a holistic, integrated, unified view of an enterprise which allows for
• Analysis across various lines of businesses and geographies
• Accurate regulatory compliance reporting
• Standardized, reproducible, consistent data across all business units
• Since data is collected, stored, and managed centrally reduces risk due to loss or absence of data
• Allows trending and what if analysis
• Allows organizations to predict rather than react
• Improved auditing and reporting capabilities for budget preparations
• Ability to do multi-year top down forecasting and business planning analysis
• Enhanced high level metric reporting and score card capabilities

At Drivestream, with our proven ability to execute at the highest level on Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence implementations we can provide the expertise, tools, and knowledge to conceptualize and build a solution that fits the culture and needs of an organization. We offer solutions that are turn-key or that can leverage existing infrastructure in all areas of DW and BI – Data Integration and ETL, Data Warehouses, Data Marts, ROLAP, OLAP, MOLAP, MDM, and Metadata Management applications.