Data Warehouse Characteristics

Data Warehouse is designed with four characteristics. They are

  1. Time variant.
  2. Non Volatile.
  3. Integrated.
  4. Subject Oriented.

Time Variant

A Data Warehouse is a time variant data base, which supports the business management in analysing the business and comparing the business with different time periods like Year, Quarter, Month, Week and Date.

Data Warehouse characteristics - Time Variant

Attributes of Time

  • DAY_NAME
  • DAY_NUMBER_IN_WEEK
  • DAY_NUMBER_IN_MONTH
  • DAY_NUMBER_IN_YEAR
  • WEEK_NUMBER_IN_MONTH
  • WEEK_NUMBER_IN_YEAR
  • MONTH_NUMBER
  • MONTH_YEAR
  • QUARTER_YEAR
  • QUARTER_NUMBER
  • YEAR
  • SESSION
  • WEEKEND_INDICATOR_FLAG
  • WEEKDAY_INDICATOR_FLAG

Non Volatile

It is non volatile Database, once the data entered into the database, it does not reflects to the change which takes place at operational database. Hence the data is statics in Data Warehouse.

  • It generates artificially keys or surrogate keys to store the history.
  • A surrogate key generated serious of numbers.
  • It requires more disk space.

Integrated Database

A DWH is a integrated database, which allows you to collect the data and integrate the data with multiple database sources.

What is Data Warehouse ? Definition & Overview

Subject Oriented

Data warehouse is a subject oriented database, which supports the business need of individual department specific user.

Example : Sales, HR, Accounts, Marketing etc.