Back to basics…..

In some previous we have discussed about the Dimensional Modelling, Datawarehousing, Facts and Dimensions etc…
But where and how are all these things used and How are they related to Analytics????

Actually Analytics is a reporting tool which aims to provide users the reports as per their requirements without much efforts and in less time.  So, to fullfill all these requirements we use the above mentioned terms….

Analytics generally makes use of DWs for storing data. The DWs have Dimension modelling done in place which help users with a fast response time. Means when a user tries to run the reports and fetch data then all this is done is seconds…

The DWs using Dimensional Modelling tech. have a denormalized structure of data which means the facts and dimensions present in DB have duplicacy in data and  that  helps to fetch data in less time. This could be better understood by reading some previous blogs abt DW and DM…..

The DWs are maintained to store history data and they dont have the transactional data as compared to OLTP. The data needs to be loaded in the DW at diff freq. depending on the client req. This movement of data can be done through many tools.

This process of movement of data between OLTP & OLAP is called ETL i.e. Extraction, Transformation & Loading.

Extraction – The process of extraction of data from OLTP DB.
Transformation – The process of Data conditioning based on how the data needs to be stored in DW.
Loading – The process of loading of data in DW.

There are several tools available for ETL process…
Informatica, Data Stage, Abinitio etc…