We’re living in times where big data and analytics are driving all business decisions and traditional approaches to data management no longer fit the bill. In order to make data-driven decisions and draw insights [1], businesses today need a robust data warehouse solution that serves as the single source of truth with accurate and up-to-date data.

As essential as a data warehouse may be, taking an initiative so massive comes with its share of challenges. From data quality issues to performance optimization, a lot needs to be taken into account when building a data warehouse for your growing business.

Add to that the different steps involved in data warehouse modernization including creating strategies to ensure that your data warehouse meets availability and scalability requirements, and you’ve got a lot on your plate.

Modernizing the Data Warehouse: Challenges vs Benefits

Most business today wish to move their data warehouse to the cloud so that they can take advantage of the scalability, availability, and reliability offered by these platforms. What’s more, since businesses are dealing with more data sources than ever before, it’s essential for them to ensure that your data warehouse will be dynamic enough to keep up with the changing requirements of your growing business.

Today, businesses are looking to modernize their data warehouses by embracing agile methodologies that are focused on automation with minimal manual intervention. Using this approach does not only promote usage of the data warehouse for a large number of processes and functions but also improves efficiency by reducing the need to create and deploy data models from scratch.

Data warehouse modernization efforts also include increased reliance on flexible architectures and support for a wide range of data sources, allowing businesses to integrate their data from multiple touchpoints [2]. That said, like any project, it’s essential to weigh out the benefits and potential problems to ensure you’re prepared for all that’s in store with your next data warehousing project. Since every business is different, a thorough look at these benefits and challenges will also help you create a well-knitted architecture to ensure you can reap the full rewards of a modern data warehouse.

Benefits of Data Warehouse Modernization

Data warehouse modernization offers businesses the agility required to scale up and make data-driven decisions. Here are some benefits that might help you see how a modern data warehouse fits in your business.

Offers High Speed and Performance

In today’s competitive environment, the minutest delays can prove to be extremely costly for businesses. Companies today need to act fast to ensure that they don’t lose customers to their competitors – and this isn’t possible without a centralized system that gives you access to all of your data in one place figure1 shown below.

Figure1: Data warehouse modernization

As agility continues to become a requirement for more businesses than ever before, the need for a single source of truth that fuels quick decision-making cannot be emphasized enough. With a well-knitted data warehouse at your disposal, you’ll probably never have to worry about data accessibility as you’ll be able to integrate and query your data with third-party reporting and visualization tools such [3] as Powerbase that will give you a consolidated view of your data and processes.

Data warehouse modernization ensures that your data is always available and can be accessed without any affecting the productivity and efficiency of your growing business. Modern data warehouses are also built to support large data volumes, giving you the complete picture of your business and where it stands.

References:

1. https://bi-survey.com/data-warehousing-infographic
2. https://www.astera.com/type/blog/benefits-vs-challenges-of-data.
3. www.astera.com/type/blog/benefits-vs-challenges-of-data-warehouse-modernization

Cite this article:

S. Nandhinidwaraka (2021) Functions of Data warehouse modernization, pp. 14