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copied!<blockquote> <p>At what point is building a data warehouse an option worth considering? In other words, what telltale signs, metrics, or other criteria should I be looking out for that might indicate that a standard transactional environment is no longer sufficient?</p> </blockquote> <p>I'd recommend a data warehouse when you observed that performing reporting and analysis activities on the in the transactional data store was harmful to both.</p> <blockquote> <p>What are the alternatives to a full-on data warehouse? Denormalization in the transactional database and the bog-standard replicated "report server" are two that come to mind; are there any others I should explore before committing to the DW?</p> </blockquote> <p>I have nothing to offer here. I'd say that keeping the transactional and reporting databases seems sensible to me, regardless of whether you call it a warehouse or not. Data mining can be a very CPU intensive activity.</p> <blockquote> <p>Why is a data warehouse better than said alternatives? If the answer is, "it depends", then what does it depend on?</p> </blockquote> <p>I have nothing to offer here.</p> <blockquote> <p>When shouldn't I attempt to build a data warehouse? I'm skeptical of anything declared as a "best practice" irrespective of context. Surely there must be some scenarios where a DW is the wrong choice - what are they?</p> </blockquote> <p>I'd say that if you don't need to keep long history, aren't doing intensive analysis of the data, and your reporting needs are limited to an ad hoc query from time to time, then perhaps a data warehouse isn't necessary.</p> <blockquote> <p>Are there any practical examples I could look at of systems that were improved by introducing a data warehouse? Something that would explain to me, end-to-end, what sorts of decisions or analysis they needed the warehouse for, how they decided what to put in it, and how the warehouse ended up fitting into the larger environment? I don't want a contrived "let's make a cube out of the AdventureWorks database" - the implementation is irrelevant to me, I'm interested in the specifications and designs and overall thought process that were involved.</p> </blockquote> <p>My employers have all used data warehouses for many years prior to my arrival, so I can't speak to what things were like before I arrived.</p>

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