Despite low adoption rates and being dismissed by many as vendor hype, real-time data warehousing (RTDW) has remained a hot topic, says Lawrence Corr, principal consultant for DecisionOne Consulting.
Corr says this is because RTDW is a natural progression from batch to online. He defines it as the ability look at data that is refreshed at a rate more often than the current extract, transform and load processes can cope with.
While it does have benefits, says Corr, implementing RTDW can potentially double cost and development time.
According to him, current processes will need to be reviewed and restructured, and a company's business intelligence infrastructure must be able to support both active analysis and decision-making.
Companies must realise they can't just use change data capture and enterprise data integration (EAI) technology to add on real-time functionality, he continues.
Corr explains that while EAI can be used to feed small volumes of data to and from the warehouse, messaging technology will more than likely be unable to cope with the large bursts of data.
He warns that EAI can be costly, especially if a company only has a small number of systems that need integrating.
Corr suggests using enterprise information integration technology to prototype RTDW, or even to add a lightweight RTDW component to an existing warehouse.
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