The pros and cons of data warehousing

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There are a number of good books on DW. You can read anything by Ralph Kimball (kimballuniversity.com), a DW guru.

Maybe it would help you to categorize the issues, rather then pro/cons as each potential "pro" can be "con" depending on your point of view. The factors affecting the DW discussion are a combination of business and technology issues. Business people will want reports with a certain level of quality and timeliness. The infrastructure folks will want security and scalability and the other "abilities". The question for me is really, AS cube or no cube- relational reporting as it is called. Many times depending on the reporting need, a DW will be good enough. The case for a cube in my opinion is tied to aggregation and time analysis.

In the end the decision to use DW comes back to what are the reporting requirements.

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