Data Warehouse Assessments What Why and How Noah

Data Warehouse Assessments What, Why, and How Noah Subrin Technical Lead SRA International April 24, 2010

Biography Technical Lead for SRA International serving a large federal agency in the areas of web development and data warehousing Delivered presentations at several developer events throughout the Southeast Published several articles on SQL Server World Wide User group web site http: //www. sswug. org 2

Agenda BI Overview Data Marts vs Data Warehouse Discovery Process What is a data warehouse assessment? Why might we perform an assessment? How do we perform the assessment? Case Study 3

Possible Scenarios You have been asked to lead a new BI/DW initiative You have been asked to implement the next phase of an existing data mart or data warehouse You need to provide access to Production data to end users but security restrictions are in place You see a need or opportunity to position BI or data warehousing as a core technology 4

What is BI? Gathering and analysis of large amounts of data to gain insight to provide tactical and strategic decisions. 5

Data Warehouse vs Data Mart: Data Warehouse: Often holds only one subject area- for Holds multiple subject areas Holds very detailed information example, Finance, or Sales Works to integrate all data sources May hold more summarized data Storage designed to efficiently (although many hold full detail) house large amounts of data Concentrates on integrating information from a given subject area or set of source systems Storage designed for efficient data reporting and access 6

Discovery Process 7

What We Assess We go beyond evaluation of an organization’s technical architecture. Readiness Support Change Management Analysis/Design 8 Architecture Further Business Needs

Gap Analysis 9

Why perform the assessment? You want to measure key factors in order to maximize the chance of your project’s success Strong Senior Business Management Sponsor(s) Compelling Business Reasons Technical Feasibility 10

How? Identify stake holders and/or power users Interview power users to verify current needs and possibly anticipate future needs Identify and document business processes and policies Document Change management processes Document Points of contact 11

Benefits Identify business drivers, risks and long term goals Define budget ranges for each phase of your Data Mart roadmap Identify which critical business questions your Data Marts needs to answer and the value those answers will bring to your business Ways to enhance current process and add to existing systems. Customers are satisfied because they have access to more useful information to they can do their job Possible cost savings 12

Sample Deliverables AS-IS documents • Data Models • Report Inventory • Query Inventory • Technical Architecture diagram • Business Process • Documentation Inventory 13 Recommendations • Tools • Data Structures • Archiving/Historical data requirements • Reports • Technical Architecture • Governance processes TO-BE definition Goal: interactive, permanent solution for end users access of data in a nearreal time fashion

Case Study A large federal agency in a very large contact center Business Analysts lost direct access to data when moving data platform to a managed data center Needs – timely access to data, alignment of strategic goals, provide more useful information, roadmap and recommendations to achieve short term and long term goals 14

Assessment Process 15

Assessment Findings ETD and BI CCC environments Performance Interview Findings Approved Software Reporting Capabilities Data Retention Training 16

Assessment Recommendations 17

Lessons Learned Need buy in at executive level to be successful Set expectations appropriately Be prepared for follow up questions to your recommendations Have contingency plans and risk mitigation strategies in place Use SRA support structure (BI-COP) to leverage their expertise 18

Questions? Thank you for your participation 19

Contact Info Email: noah_subrin@sra. com Phone: 678 -530 -6533 20

Additional Resources The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit, Second. Editionby Ralph Kimball et al. John Wiley&Sons© 2008 www. tdwi. org IBM Developerworks article http: //www. ibm. com/developerworks/data/lib rary/techarticle/dm-0506 gong 21