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Use of Operational Meta Data in the Data Warehouse
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This white paper outlines the issues faced by BI operational staff in maintaining high quality of
BI information, and discusses technologies that have the potential to dramatically raise the
reliability and quality of BI information, improve how BI teams use their time and resources
to deliver rapid ROI and free resources to focus on answering business questions based on
reliable and meaningful data.
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Operational Meta Data
Even with a standardized meta data repository, a data warehouse
architect can still add a further level of detail into their
warehouse data model and ETL process designs through the incorporation
of operational meta data. This technique can be used as an
extension of the design and architecture of the data warehouse
that provides processing optimizations in data acquisition
design, maintenance activities and end user reconciliation
and auditing of information.
Operational meta data provides an additional bridge between
the meta data repository and the data warehouse through the
addition of physical columns into the design for ease of use
by both business and technical users.
- Operational meta data, unlike information stored in the
meta data repository, is referenced at a row level of granularity
in the data warehouse.
- Operational meta data provides a detailed row level explanation
of actual information content in the data warehouse.
This direct association to each row of information in the
warehouse is operational meta data’s key design distinction.
Incorporation of Operational Meta Data
There are varieties of operational meta data columns that
can utilized in the design of the data warehouse to enhance
automated support. Depending on the business requirements
of the warehouse project, inclusion of certain columns may
make more or less sense to use. Incorporation of these fields
would normally occur during the transformation of the business
logical data model into the dimensional or data warehouse
data model. Some of the more prevalent columns used are listed
below.
- Load Cycle Identifier
- Current Flag Indicator
- Load Date
- Update Date
- Operational System(s) Identifier
- Active in Operational System Flag
- Confidence Level Indicator
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