Part Two: Why do Data Warehouses Take so Long and Cost so Much?

In last week's post, we took a look at the issues and challenges companies face regarding the build and deployment of Data Warehouses (DWs) and Enterprise Data Warehouses (EDWs). In part 2 of our analysis, we will take a look at the solution for these challenges.

Before doing so, let's briefly review some of the reasons for the high rate of EDW failure:

• Lack of strong executive sponsorship
• Inadequate EDW architecture and documentation
• Data mart design mindset
• Implementation team waited for a complete set of requirements
• Analysis paralysis
• EDW database design was not scalable and adaptable
• Implementation team had never built a DW or EDW
• Requirements gatherers did not understand the business
• The amount of manual development by specialized technology teams and tools
• Data integration proved much more difficult than anticipated

I’m sure that if I could show you a way to meet these needs at a reasonable cost, you would be interested. There is technology that completely, or mostly eliminates many of the reasons that EDWs fail. TimeXtender’s TX DWA is that way. It is a powerful business platform that can make your organization much more competitive at a low cost.

According to The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI), “data warehouse automation is using technology to gain efficiencies and improve effectiveness in data warehousing processes. Data warehouse automation is much more than simply automating the development process. It encompasses all of the core processes of data warehousing including design, development, testing, deployment, operations, impact analysis, and change management."

The conventional wisdom in all software development is that you can have it fast, cheap or good. Pick any two, you can’t have all three. Fast and cheap means low quality. Good and fast means much more expensive. Cheap and good means much slower delivery.

However, TimeXtender’s TX DWA turns this conventional wisdom on its head. You can have a data warehouse implementation that is good (high quality), fast (up to an order of magnitude faster delivery) and cheap to develop (compared to traditional methods).

Let’s take a look at the major cost and schedule drivers for data warehouses. The items listed below account for about 80% of the reasons that EDWs fail or go over budget or miss scheduled targets. TimeXtender’s TX DWA addresses all of these issues and makes implementing and maintaining a data warehouse up to 80% less expensive than using traditional data warehouse tools and techniques.

• ETL development comprises up to 75% of initial data warehouse development costs. TX DWA reduces the time to develop, test and implement ETL by up to 80%.This is an extraordinary benefit! Changes to ETL are typically very time-consuming and expensive. TX DWA allows ETL changes to be made quickly and inexpensively.
• Changes to the DW database design due to new requirements or scope creep is a major factor. This has a ripple effect that causes changes in ETL, database and OLAP design. Using traditional methods, this can cause weeks or months of delay. TimeXtender’s TX DWA takes care of these in a flash.
• The implementation team doesn’t deliver what the users want. This is largely due to the time it takes using traditional methods to create prototypes for the end users to verify. With TimeXtender’s TX DWA, prototypes and proofs of concept are developed quickly and easily. The implementer can sit with the end user and develop a prototype in a few minutes. This is so much more effective than using PowerPoint or some other tool to develop “wireframe” requirements.
• New releases take a great amount of time and resources. Here again, with TimeXtender’s TX DWA, just a few clicks is all that it takes to promote all or part of a project from the Test environment to Production.
• Keeping history for data warehouse dimensions requires a lot of development and testing using traditional approaches. TimeXtender’s TX DWA can do this with only a few clicks.
• Most data warehouses lack comprehensive and up-to-date documentation. This can be a serious problem when bringing new people onto the project. TimeXtender’s TX DWA provides complete metadata dictionary that can tell you where a particular piece of data came from, what his lineage is and many other crucial pieces of information. Every time a change or addition is made to the TimeXtender’s TX DWA data warehouse, the metadata repository is updated to reflect the exact state of the data warehouse project.
• Most data warehouse projects do not plan for the enhancement and maintenance during the life of the data warehouse. Using traditional methods, enhancements and maintenance is huge and expensive often costing more than 10 times the amount of the original data warehouse implementation. TimeXtender’s TX DWA automates this process to provide a very low total cost of ownership (TCO) during the life of the data warehouse.

TimeXtender's TX DWA provides tremendous benefits for building a data warehouse. Here are just some of the benefits:

• Radically cuts time and cost
• Helps make up for lack of expertise and experience
• Much less complex than traditional data warehouse tables
• Ideal for an agile data warehouse project
• High quality, architected solution
• Up-to-date documentation generation - data dictionary, source to target mapping, etc.

TimeXtender’s TX DWA is truly a force multiplier.  Contact us today to find out more and to see how TimeXtender’s TX DWA can provide tremendous business value to your organization.