TidyData's data warehouse monitoring services help ensure that your data warehouse is always functioning at full capacity. Data warehouses require constant monitoring and maintenance. These tasks require highly-skilled and experienced experts.

Without proper monitoring, you run the risk of extracting inaccurate data. Our ETL monitoring and data pipeline monitoring services provide you with an up-to-date look at your data pipeline. If there is an issue with your data warehouse, we send out notifications to alert your team that something is wrong.

Here’s a look at what data warehouses do and how we make sure it’s doing its job.

What is a Data Warehouse?

Data warehouse systems pull together data from across your organization for accurate reports and analysis. These reports are created from complex queries within a data warehouse. Companies use these reports as the bases for business decisions.

The main purpose of a data warehouse is to provide a correlation between data from existing systems with data stored in another system. They use complex queries to analyze data rather than process transactions. Data warehouses provide you with a consolidated view of either a physical or logical data repository collected from various systems.

Why is it Important?

Data warehouses can be a lifesaver for companies looking to organize data that streams in from corporate branches and operation centers around the world. They allow you to easily analyze data over a specific period of time. This can be beneficial for your business for several different reasons:

  1. Consistency

    Data warehouses apply a uniform format to all collected data. This makes it much easier for corporate decision-makers to analyze and share data insights with their cohorts. A uniform format also helps prevent the risk of data being misinterpreted or lost in translation.

  2. Better Business Decisions

    Successful new-age business leaders use data-driven strategies to help drive their companies forward. Data warehousing allows these leaders to make more accurate decisions in a timely and efficient manner. Organized data consolidation provide decision-makers the opportunity to create the accurate data-driven strategies needed to improve the bottom line.

  3. Improve the Bottom Line

    The number one goal for business leaders is to increase their bottom line. Data warehouse platforms allow business leaders to access their organization’s historical activities so they can assess what has been successful and what has not. This allows leaders to see where they should spend the bulk of their energy and where they should look to cut costs.

Why Does it Need to Be Monitored?

Implementing a data warehouse program isn’t the last step in the process. Monitoring the program’s progress and performance ensures that the program is delivering the results you need. Without proper and formal warehouse monitoring, these desired results simply can not be achieved.

Monitoring statistics provide you with indicators that provide information about the data warehouses function. These indicators will provide you with information on the utilization of hardware and software resources. If you can properly understand how well the servers function, you gain valuable insights.

How TidyData Monitors Data Warehouses

TindyData’s monitoring services help companies obtain accurate data from data warehouses on a consistent basis. We help companies protect their investments in their data pipelines by ensuring it runs error-free with accurate results. Our customized notifications alert your teams through the tools they use to communicate rather it be Slack, Pagerduty, or email.

We offer a hosted solution to ensure monitoring is set up quickly, easily and scaleable. Custom solutions are error-prone, laborious, and non-scalable. Our goal is to make sure you’re always getting accurate data representation without the hassle of having to monitor your database on your own.

General FAQ’s

Data warehouse programs and data warehouse monitoring can be confusing. Without experience in the area, it’s easy to get lost relatively quickly. Below are some common questions asked by our clients.

We hope that by answering these questions, you can develop a better understanding of what data warehouse programs do. You will also better understand why monitoring data warehouses is crucial.

What is Data Warehouse With Example?

Essentially, data warehousing is an electronic method of organizing information. It combines information and statistics from several sources and combines them into one comprehensive database. A real-world example of this would be a data warehouse collecting customer information from a company’s cash registers, website, mailing list, or comment cards.

The program can also be used to collect all the information about a company’s employees including time cards, demographic data, and salary information. This helps provide companies with a more holistic view of both their customers and their employees. Information that used to be unavailable or hard to trace down, can now be easily found within seconds using a data warehouse.

What is The Difference Between Data Warehouse and a Database?

While databases and data warehouses may seem similar on the surface, they both differ greatly from one another and are used in different industries. Listed below are some of the key differences between databases and data warehouses: Databases are designed to record data whereas data warehouses are designed to analyze data, While databases use Online Transactional Processing, data warehouses use Online Analytical Processing, Databases are a collection of related data that represent elements of the real world whereas data warehouses are information systems that store historical data from multiple sources. As you can see, databases are commonly used to record information while data warehouses are designed to analyze data. Databases are designed to help perform fundamental business operations while data warehouses help you analyze your business. The one best for you will depend on your business goals.

What Are Examples of When to Use Data Warehousing

As mentioned above, whether your business is in need of a database or a data warehouse will depend largely on the goals of your business. Databases and data warehouses are often used by the same sectors but provide a different service to the company. Below are examples of how sectors may use a database and how they may use a data warehouse:

As you can see, while both are used in similar sectors, they each help accomplish different tasks. While databases help record and store information, data warehouses help you accurately analyze that information.

What are the Disadvantages of Data Warehousing?

Data warehousing doesn’t come without flaws. Some of these flaws can be easily avoided with regular warehouse monitoring and maintenance. Keep these disadvantages in mind when considering how data warehousing can help achieve your company’s goals: Adding new data can be time-consuming, Data warehouses are high maintenance systems, Issues with the data warehouse can go undetected for years, shining a light on how important monitoring is Data warehouses often require training to properly operate The scope of data warehousing is always increasing. It’s important to note that data warehouse programs aren’t plug-and-play systems that you never have to worry about again. These programs require a high amount of maintenance and monitoring. Keep that in mind when you are considering a data warehouse program.

What is a Cloud Data Warehouse?

Cloud data warehouses have boomed in popularity in recent years as companies look to reduce their own physical data center footprints. With cloud data warehouses, the physical aspects of the storage are all handled by cloud companies. This means companies no longer need large warehouses full of data available to be processed. Cloud data warehouses include a database or pointers to a collection of databases where production data is collected. There is then some form of integrated query engine that enables users to search and analyze the data. This helps companies with data mining.

How do I Choose The Right One?

There’s a wide range of data warehouse programs on the market, making it difficult for your company to choose the perfect fit. Consider your company’s needs and compare them with products available on the market. Here are some important factors to consider when looking for the right data warehouse: Data types - what kind of data are you looking to store? Data warehouses work with two types of data: structured and unstructured. Relation databases work well with structured data while non-relational databases work well with semi-structured data. Scale - think about the amount of data that you’re looking to store. Performance - how quickly do you want your data warehouse to pull up information when you query it. Cost - what is your budget for data warehousing and the maintenance/monitoring it may require. Community - how connected do you want the warehouse to be to other critical tools and services within your company.

In order to check all the boxes, certain tradeoffs may have to be made. For example, if your number one goal is to be as cost-efficient as possible, you may have to sacrifice on scale or performance. Think about what it is you want your data warehouse to do the most.

What Are Types of Data Warehouse?

There are three main types of data warehouses. Again, the type that is best for your business will depend on what you’re hoping to get out of the warehouse. Here are the three main types of data warehouses: Enterprise data warehouse - This is a centralized data warehouse. It offers an organized approach for organizing and representing data. It provides the ability to classify data according to the subject. Operational data store - In Operational Data Stores (ODS), data warehouses are refreshed in real-time. This makes ODS the preferred option for activities like the storing of employee records. Data Mart - Data marts are subsets of a data warehouse. They are designed for specific lines of business such as sales and finance. In an independent data mart, data can collect directly from sources. The type of data warehouse best suited for your company will depend on what you’re hoping to get out of the data warehouse. If you’re in the sales or finance sector, perhaps a data mart is the best option.

How Are They Built?

There are several different ways that you can go about building a data warehouse. Regardless of your approach, there are three main components that should make up every data warehouse. Those three components are: Storage - This is obviously the main foundation. You can either use an in-house server or the cloud to store information. Software - This is the operational part of the data warehouse structure. These are often broken down into two categories - centralization software and visualization software. Centralization software is needed to collect and maintain data while visualization software is needed to present the data in a visual form. Labor - In order to keep your warehouse fully functional, you may need to hire outside help. Running a data warehouse requires a lot of knowledge, meaning you need well-skilled professionals.

The structure of a data warehouse is rather basic. You can build your warehouse however you want but it must include these three pillars to function properly.

Do I Need One?

Data warehouses can help you and your business stay organized. They also help you find data quickly that can help predict trends and analyze old techniques. Here are the four main reasons why you should consider a data warehouse: You need to analyze data from different sources. You need to separate analytical data from transactional data. Your original data source isn’t suitable for querying. To improve the performance of your most-used queries.There are many reasons why a data warehouse may be beneficial to your business, but these are the four basic reasons.

We Can Help

If you’re in need of data warehouse monitoring our team here at TidyData is here to help. All you need to do is simply plug us into your data warehouse and we will take care of it from there. We look forward to working with you!