Approaches to Building BI Applications and Data Warehouses

Original Post date 2/27/09

I’d like to comment a bit on the differences between BI and Data Warehousing as I believe they are commonly confused and used interchangeably.  Having just come from a project which mixed the two together with poor results, I think some discussion on the topic is a good idea and one that is fresh in my head.  This is a long post, so go get some coffee (or Red Bull) first.

Before I get into this, I fully understand and accept that there are varied opinions about this topic.  I am not going to propose a one-size-fits-all philosophy.  There also may be some technical features out there which some may claim make my comments obsolete.  I am going to focus on the purpose of the two and how that drives how you build a BI system.  If you are hoping I’ll get into a Kimball vs. Inmon data warehouse architecture or modeling discussion you will be disappointed.  I recommend you read their books and articles for the details of their solutions.

I am going to approach this by defining two very distinct items at different ends of a spectrum, and then discuss how they can and cannot be merged into the same thing.  The point is to contrast the two needs so conflicts become apparent.