Re: Time for my yearly question:

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: Ian Boyd (admin_at_SWIFTPA.NET)
Date: 07/16/04 

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 19:59:39 -0400

Yeah.

i guess i'll wait for Adam's recommended book to arrive.

"frank20" <frank20@cox.net> wrote in message
news:iQSJc.2862$Wv4.709@okepread03...
>
> "Ian Boyd" <admin@SWIFTPA.NET> wrote:
> > Where is a good introduction to what a warehouse is?
>
> One (slightly oversimplified) way to understand / think about the topic is
> to start by considering a 'real world' warehouse...say one for a very
large
> distributer of goods for dozens of types of retail stores.
>
> While the 'warehouse' contains everything that ends up in stores for sale,
> it, itself, is not a store. All the selling, product display, etc, goes on
> at the stores. For the stores to function / make money, it is critical
that
> the distributer be able to offer / deliver the products asked for, when
> needed. This means that the warehouse and the store(s) are separate, but
> inter-dependent.
>
> The distributer has a constant need to monitor / analyze / act what is
going
> in the warehouse, among the suppliers to the warehouse, and, of course,
the
> stores 'pulling' products from his warehouse. What distributer is looking
at
> / for is different than, say, what the owners / operators of the stores
are
> looking at.
>
> Using a very simple example, if the distributer stocks 'TVs', what matters
> is how many, of what kind, from whom, are currently in stock...and, most
> importantly...how many should be there in a week or a month. All of this
> 'interest' is at an 'aggregate' level...meaning, it probably does not
really
> matter to the distributer which store chains, or stores within a chain,
sell
> the TVs...only 'overall' how many TVs are moving through the warehouse.
>
> Clearly, to do this kind of monitoring / analysis (and other warehouse
> management functions), only certain kinds of information is necessary. I
am
> not going to enumerate the entire typical set, but only point out that it
> falls into three very general categories: numbers, descriptions, and
dates.
> Translated to 'warehouse-ese', I would call these components become
> facts/metrics, attributes, and, well, 'dates'. (I personally like to keep
> the notion of dates as separate for a practical reason...in SQL server,
for
> example, numbers have a collection of assigned / available datatypes, so
do
> descriptions (text), and so do dates).
>
> Back to the 'real world' example. What is mainly going on in a 'store' (if
> it is successful) is sales transactions...and the system(s) supporting it
> are analagous to the OLTP systems. What is going on in the warehouse, at
> some level, is analysis (of inventory turn-over, of supply lead times, of
> feedback from the stores, etc.)...and the system(s) supporting it are
> analagous to BI systems.
>
> For the BI systems to work, they need a database and flow of info from the
> physical warehouse, from suppliers, and from the stores. In terms of the
> database, it needs to be organized to support its purpose...which is, as
> noted, analysis rather than transaction processing. This generally means
> factoring how analysis is done (by 'attributes' and 'dates') into tables /
> relationships...with each needed 'how' ending up as a dimension within the
> database. Building a 'date dimension' into the datbase simply means that,
> since 'date' is often part of an analysis query, the database design
> facilitates that use (through tables / relationships, indices, etc).
>
> While realizing that this is a gross simplification, I hope that it helped
> to answer your question...or, at least, provided a way for you to think
> about it more concretely.
>
> Regards,
> Frank J. Hannaford
>
>

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