Data Warehouse Evolution to Reach Critical Mass

A shift from data storage and access to delivery and comprehension is occurring, leading to a point of critical mass for data warehouse evolution this year, according to research from Gartner Inc. The firm called it the data warehouse’s “most-significant inflection point since its inception” in an announcement.

Gartner finds that the data warehouse is changing to a new kind of warehouse that addresses more extreme types of information assets and will introduce new scope for flexibility in adding new information types as well as change detection.

In 2011, Gartner predicts data warehouse platforms will evolve from an information store supporting traditional business intelligence to a broader analytics infrastructure. This will support operational analytics, corporate performance management and other new applications, the research group reports.

Gartner has monitored the market and is seeing vendors expanding offerings that are easier to implement and manage. Donald Feinberg, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, pointed out in the news release, “At the high end, data warehousing is now mission-critical."

Gartner research shows the market is shifting from storage and access to delivery and comprehension, which means context as depicted in metadata will become paramount.

By 2013, Gartner predict that data warehouse DBMS vendors will combine their offerings to become something more like an information management platform.

“The DBMS will become, above all else, an execution platform. It will support and perform data management and integration tasks as well as for query and analysis execution," said Mark Beyer, research vice president at Gartner in a statement.

Additional information is available in the Gartner report "The State of Data Warehousing in 2011."

This story has been reprinted with permission from Information Management.

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