Oracle Tips  by Burleson Consulting

The Data Warehouse Development Life Cycle

Data Warehouse Development Methods  
Phase 1: Feasibility Study
A feasibility study is a cost/benefit analysis for a proposed system, quantifying all tangible costs and benefits for the warehouse, as well as describing intangible costs and benefits. Essentially, the goal of this study is to provide a go/no go decision about whether to proceed with the data warehouse project. Activities involve an analysis of technological and economic feasibility with a focus on understanding all of the costs and benefits that will accrue from the data warehouse.

Phase 2: Systems Analysis
A systems analysis is a logical description of the data sources for the warehouse, data extraction analysis, data cleansing analysis, and data loading analysis. Unlike a traditional system, the warehouse analysis is heavily data-centric and not concerned with defining the system interfaces.

In Figure 2.1, you can see that the systems analysis phase requires a relatively small amount of effort. This is often due to an impatience with management, as well as a reflection of the power of the new CASE tools. It is no longer necessary to devote a huge amount of effort into a systems analysis before undertaking systems design. The inherent flexibility of the Oracle architecture makes it very easy to alter the database structure if some data item was missed during the analysis phase. For more information on this topic, see Chapter 3, Data Warehouse Analysis.

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