BI/DW Best Practice #1 - Principles

We always consider the business need, performance, capability to change and reality. I believe that they are the top design principles for a BI/DW project.  They also represent the corresponding quality referring to the traps that I discussed in my last article.

BI/DW Best Practices

There are several general rules in designing and implementing BI/DW projects to ensure the successful and quality of the projects. I am trying to consolidate some of those important best practices from what I have learned and experienced.

In this series, I will focus on those practices related to my role, experiences and exposure. So, it doesn't a complete list of best practices in the BI/DW industry.

• Best Practice #0 - What may happen if we don't follow the best practices

BI/DW Best Practice #0 - What may happen if we don't follow the best practices

BI Best practices guide us how to develop BI projects by introducing some principles, recommended methodologies and suggestions. By following them, we can avoid being trapped by some common troubles. Before we start introducing some practices, I would like to tell you some common troubles first. I classified them into three major categories using my words. They are the Performance Trap, Change Trap and Information Trap. 

What is Data Warehouse?

Data warehouse (DW) is the architecture to collect and manage business data from various sources to provide meaningful business insight. It is different to the database of other operational systems. It collects the data from different business processes while operational database focuses in particular process. Its purpose for querying and analysis while operational database is for supporting its operations (e.g. frequent DML for sales transaction entries).

There are two well-known approaches to implement data warehouse.

What is Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence refers to the technologies, applications and practices to collect , integrate and convert the business data into information to support the analysis and business decision making.

Introduction

I was a Business Intelligence Consultant. I quit my job in Hong Kong last year. Now, I am a student studying in Calgary, Canada. I planned to go back to the BI industry afterward. Before I enter the job market again, I would like to take this chance to consolidate my working experiences and knowledge. They may include those skills and industry best practices I learned. I also want to document some challenges I faced and the methodologies used to overcome them. I believe that it would be helpful in my future career. I may get some hints by reviewing these articles when I have a new challenge. If you may reach my articles from search engine, I would be happy if my articles may give you some ideas.