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Evaluation Of User Requirement Analysis Of Data Warehouse Design

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Evaluation of User Requirement Analysis in Data Warehouse Design
1.0 Introduction
A data warehouse (DW) can be acknowledged as one of the most complex information system modules available and it is a system that periodically retrieves and consolidates data from the sources into a dimensional or normalized data store. It is an integrated, subject-oriented, nonvolatile and a time-variant collection of data in support of management’s decisions (Inmon, 1993).
1.1 Data Warehouse Design Process
When considering suggestions of various authors who are well known in the field, such as William Inmon and Ralph Kimball the DW design process can be divided into three main stages (Figure 1).

The first phase which is DW planning is aimed at …show more content…

However, DW projects are complex, inherently risky and some of them fail in the implementation. According to studies more than 80% of DW projects fail to fulfill business goals.
One of the main reasons behind the failure of DW is the incompetence in analyzing user requirements. Kimball et al. (2008) indicated that requirement definition phase is paramount and will impact almost every decision in the DW project. This paper will concentrate on the main approaches of user requirement gathering in DW design.
1.2 User Requirement Analysis Approaches
User requirement analysis approaches fall within two major categories, which are supply-driven and demand-driven. Supply-driven approaches which is also called as data-driven, start with an analysis of all the available operational data. This is a bottom-up technique introduced by Inmon (1996) with emphasis on underlying operational data sources as the basis to establish the scope and the functionality of a DW. Data-driven approach starts with identifying all available data within transactional data source and analyses it in order to produce data mapping.
Demand-driven approach which is also called as requirements-driven, starts from identifying the information requirements of business users. This implies a top-down technique. For this method high level of top management involvement is required and the focus is on their needs to align DW with corporate strategy and business objectives. Requirements are used to build a conceptual

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