CHAPTER 8
Viewing and Protecting
Organizational Information
Learning Outcomes
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Describe the roles and purposes of data
warehouses and data marts
Compare and contrast the multidimensional
nature of data warehouses (and data marts) with
the two-dimensional nature of databases
Summarize the importance of ensuring the
cleanliness of information throughout an
organization
Define the relationship between backup and
recovery
Illustrate the five characteristics of adaptable
systems
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Data Warehouse Fundamentals
 Data warehouse

a logical collection of information – gathered from
many different operational databases – that
supports business analysis activities and decisionmaking tasks
The purpose: to aggregate information throughout
an organization into a single repository for
decision-making purposes
 Data mart – contains a subset of data warehouse
information
 Extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL)
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Data Warehouse Model
Multidimensional Analysis and
Data Mining
 Databases contain information in a series of
two-dimensional tables
 In a data warehouse and data mart,
information is multidimensional, it contains
layers of columns and rows

Dimension – a particular attribute of
information
 Cube – common term for the representation
of multidimensional information
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Multidimensional Analysis and
Data Mining
 Data mining – the process of analyzing data to
extract information not offered by the raw data alone
 Data-mining tools – use a variety of techniques to
find patterns and relationships in large volumes of
information and infer rules from them that predict
future behavior and guide decision making
Include query tools, reporting tools,
multidimensional analysis tools, statistical tools,
and intelligent agents
Which employees are spending the most amount
of money on long-distance phone calls
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Which customers are returning the most products
Information cleansing and scrubbing
 a process that weeds out and fixes or
discards inconsistent, incorrect, or
incomplete information
What would happen if the information contained in the
data warehouse was only about 70 percent accurate?
Would you use this information to make
business decisions?
Could an organization get to a 100% accuracy level on
information contained in its data warehouse?
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Keeping Business Operations
Running Smoothly
 Organizations must protect themselves from
system failures and crashes
 Three primary steps an organization can take
to protect its systems:
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Develop an appropriate backup and recovery
strategy
Create a disaster recovery plan
Build adaptable business systems
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Backup and Recovery Strategy
 Backup – an exact copy of a system’s
information
 Recovery – the ability to get a system up and
running in the event of a system crash or
failure and includes restoring the information
backup
What would happen if your computer crashed right now
and you couldn’t recovery any of their information?
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Disaster Recovery Plan
a detailed process for recovering information or
an IT system in the event of a catastrophic
disaster
 Hot site – a separate and fully equipped facility
where the company can move immediately after
a disaster and resume business
 Cold site – a separate facility that does not have
any computer equipment, but is a place where
employees can move after the disaster
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Building Adaptable Systems
1. Flexibility – systems must meet all types of business
2.
3.
4.
5.
changes
Scalability – refers to how well a system can adapt
to increased demands
Reliability – ensures all systems are functioning
correctly and providing accurate information
Availability – addresses when systems can be
accessed by employees, customers, and partners
Performance – measures how quickly a system
performs a certain process or transaction in terms of
efficiency IT metrics of both speed and throughput
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Opening Case Study Questions Searching for Revenue - Google
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Determine how Google could use a data warehouse
to improve its business operations
Explain why Google would need to scrub and
cleanse the information in its data warehouse
Identify a data mart that Google’s marketing and
sales department might use to track and analyze its
AdWords revenue
Describe the fundamentals of a disaster recovery
plan along with a recommendation for a plan for
Google
Describe why availability and scalability are critical
to Google’s business operations
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