This Old Warehouse

Data warehouse renovation / revitalization requires a methodical approach. Successful data warehouse implementations grow over time in response to increased demands for information by the business constituencies they support. Meeting the demands of continuous enhancement and additions to a production warehouse on a demanding schedule can force warehouse support teams to follow less than optimal procedures.

A large Canadian bank has had a data warehouse in place since 1996. As a result of continuous change, the warehouse architecture began to collapse under its own weight, burdened with an inefficient database and ETL architecture design.

This case study will examine:

• The approach and method taken to data warehouse renovation
• The challenges that needed to be overcome to execute the renovations
• The end result of the first phase of the initiative
• Lessons learned from the exercise
• What to do and what to avoid when renovating data warehouses