Hello and welcome to
A company that was only created because of its data.
Normally it’s the other way around. But this way we can create the ideal data set and ensure that this data set contains all the typical problems that a data warehouse with Data Vault has to solve. Of course, this also includes requirements for evaluations and the resulting business rules.
Ideal for a Data Warehouse Automation Challenge
This makes the data ideal for a Data Warehouse Automation Challenge, where DWH automation tools can show how these challenges are solved quickly and easily.
Data Warehouse Automation (DWA) promises to make it much easier to set up and maintain a data warehouse. Standard efforts are radically reduced. More time remains for the demanding tasks that cannot be automated.
There are many DWA tools today and many nice statements from the manufacturers. For individual DWH teams, it is difficult to understand what works in the DWA tool and how. That’s why every team does an evaluation, which in principle always goes something like this:
- Selection of 2-3 DWA tools
- Testing with a sample set of data
- Create an assessment framework
- Evaluation and selection of tools
- Introduction of the DWA tool
- Customizing of the tool and the processes
This is very time-consuming and takes between 3 and 9 months. Whereby the individual total duration – just like the Richter scale – is open upwards. The undertaking is not easy: the selection of the criteria for the evaluation alone requires massive knowledge about the automation of a DWH. That’s what you do when you don’t yet have an automation tool and are now gathering your own initial experience. What comes first here, chicken or egg?
The data of the Willibald seed and plant shop should help here. Currently, these consist of 2 databases that depict 13 typical problems in the creation of a data warehouse. These databases are freely available under the Creative Commons licence CC Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
But no data warehouse without evaluation.
Furthermore, there are requirements for business rules and data mart. And the overarching functions are also illuminated.
The 22 criteria
All in all, there are 22 criteria. Several products have taken up the challenge. A catalogue compares the solutions and approaches of the individual DWA tools based on the 22 criteria.
The evaluation
With this, a main part of the tool selection is ready for use. The actual evaluation is now done individually. Each criterion receives points in order to prove that the desired functionality is fulfilled. This must then be brought into line with the price of the DWA tool and presented in a decision template. This evaluation or decision template can and must be done individually. After all, every company has its own requirements, which result from the data, the system environment, the skillset of the employees and the specifications from the purchasing department.