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a warehouse database server that is almost always a relational database system. Back-end tools and utilities are used to feed data into the bottom tier from operational databases or other external sources (e.g., customer profile information provided by external consultants). These tools and utilities perform data extraction, cleaning, and transformation (e.g., to merge similar data from different sources into a unified format), as well as load and refresh functions to update the data warehouse (see Section 4.1.6). The data are extracted using application program interfaces known as gateways. A gateway is supported by the underlying DBMS and allows client programs to generate SQL code to be executed at a server. Examples of gateways include ODBC (Open Database Connection) and OLEDB (Object Linking and Embedding Database) by Microsoft and JDBC (Java Database Connection). This tier also contains a metadata repository, which stores information about the data warehouse and its contents. The metadata repository is further described in Section 4.1.7.

2. The middle tier is an OLAP server that is typically implemented using either (1) a relational OLAP (ROLAP) model (i.e., an extended relational DBMS that maps operations on multidimensional data to standard relational operations); or (2) a multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) model (i.e., a special-purpose server that directly implements multidimensional data and operations). OLAP servers are discussed in Section 4.4.4.

3. The top tier is a front-end client layer, which contains query and reporting tools, analysis tools, and/or data mining tools (e.g., trend analysis, prediction, and so on).

4.1.5. Data Warehouse Models: Enterprise Warehouse, Data Mart, and Virtual Warehouse

From the architecture point of view, there are three data warehouse models: the enterprise warehouse, the data mart, and the virtual warehouse.

Enterprise warehouse: An enterprise warehouse collects all of the information about subjects spanning the entire organization. It provides corporate-wide data integration, usually from one or more operational systems or external information providers, and is cross-functional in scope. It typically contains detailed data as well as summarized data, and can range in size from a few gigabytes to hundreds of gigabytes, terabytes, or beyond. An enterprise data warehouse may be implemented on traditional mainframes, computer superservers, or parallel architecture platforms. It requires extensive business modeling and may take years to design and build.

Data mart: A data mart contains a subset of corporate-wide data that is of value to a specific group of users. The scope is confined to specific selected subjects. For example, a marketing data mart may confine its subjects to customer, item, and sales. The data contained in data marts tend to be summarized.

Data marts are usually implemented on low-cost departmental servers that are Unix/Linux or Windows based. The implementation cycle of a data mart is more likely to be measured in weeks rather than months or years. However, it may involve complex integration in the long run if its design and planning were not enterprise-wide.

Depending on the source of data, data marts can be categorized as independent or dependent. Independent data marts are sourced from data captured from one or more operational systems or external information providers, or from data generated locally within a particular department or geographic area. Dependent data marts are sourced directly from enterprise data warehouses.

Virtual warehouse: A virtual warehouse is a set of views over operational databases. For efficient query processing, only some of the possible summary views may be materialized. A virtual warehouse is easy to build but requires excess capacity on operational database servers.

“What are the pros and cons of the top-down and bottom-up approaches to data warehouse development?” The top-down development of an enterprise warehouse serves as a systematic solution and minimizes integration problems. However, it is expensive, takes a long