From the course: Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Understanding the differences between typical databases and data warehouses

Understanding the differences between typical databases and data warehouses - SQL Server Tutorial

From the course: Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Start my 1-month free trial

Understanding the differences between typical databases and data warehouses

“

In this section, I'd like to talk about the differences between typical databases and data warehouses. A typical database does what we call online transaction processing. The term transaction implies that data will be changing, and these databases are designed and optimized to handle those changes quickly and easily. Contrast that to a data warehouse, which implements what we call Online Analytical Processing. The focus of our design is not to optimize changes, but instead to optimize analysis. Making it as easy as possible to break down the data into smaller more meaningful chunks. Some more specific examples of the differences, calculated data. A transactional database typically doesn't want to store any calculated data, because that data could have to be changed frequently when the underlying data, the data that the calculations came from, changes. In a data warehouse, we're not going to change the underlying data. Therefore having calculated data is typically a good idea. It can…

Contents