Data Integration: Data Mart Design and Development

CCI espouses a data base design philosophy developed by Ralph Kimball. This philosophy is based on a star/snowflake schema design. This elegant approach has many advantages. Among them are rapid response time for queries, simple navigation, and extensibility. CCI has used IBM Cognos’ Data Manager tool for years as a means of automatically generating star schemas. By mapping to all relevant data sources, doing necessary data transformations, and loading the newly designed data mart, CCI gets its customers off on the right foot quickly using Data Manager.

Over the years, CCI has helped implement this philosophy for firms like Fleet Bank, Gorton’s, Staples, Aspect Medical, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and Welch’s. By setting up a centralized data store with common data definitions, measures, and naming conventions, a well designed data mart serves as the source of consistent data. Its availability means a report created by finance will have the same numbers and use the same formulas as a different report created by sales. No more arguing about whose figures are right. In addition, the marts can be set up to automatically update on a pre-determined schedule. Hence, all users are guaranteed that their figures are up to date and reliable.

Of course data marts can be designed and built using a broad cross section of tools. CCI offers expertise in many of the leading tools like Informatica, DataStage, SSIS, and Ascential. These, more general purpose tools can provide much of the same functionality as IBM Cognos’ Data Manager. If you’ve made an investment in them and need assistance with data mart design and development, we’re pleased to be of service in leveraging your investment.