Keep your data warehouse humming

Until recently, extract, transform and load (ETL) was considered the most effective way to load information into a data warehouse. It was a method developed because data warehouses were not considered capable of handling the extensive processing required to perform the complex transformations. Third-party tools such as IBM's WebSphere have been used to orchestrate the data movement. But now, there's a newer technique called extract, load and transform (ELT) which moves data to an intermediate platform before passing it along to the data warehouse. ETL transfers data directly into a data warehouse infrastructure. We all know that data preservation is becoming more important for a variety of reasons. As business intelligence becomes part of your protocol, a vibrant data warehouse becomes an essential component of your business plan. Let us know how you are dealing with this issue and whether it is among the biggest challenges you face.

For more on data warehousing:
- See this SearchCIO article