Understanding Dimension Volatility in Data Warehouses ( or Bin There Done That )

Introduction Data warehousing has become an increasingly important technology in many organizations, integrating disparate sources of data for decision-making, planning, and policy formulation. Data warehousing applications can be sources of competitive advantage. Even if the raw data is widely available, the strategies for integrating, analyzing, and acting on the information can be differentiating factors. Computer industry trends in processor performance, main memory growth, parallel servers, and especially storage subsystems are making large-scale data warehouses accessible to increasing numbers of organizations. In addition, Web-enabled access has made data warehouse deployment even more widespread. All these factors point toward data warehousing technology becoming an increasingly critical component of corporate knowledge management efforts.