A data warehouse, or enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system to aggregate your data from multiple sources so it’s easy to access and analyze. Data warehouses typically store large amounts of historical data that can be queried by data engineers and business analysts for business intelligence.
Instead of only having access to your data from individual sources, a data warehouse will funnel all your data from disparate sources (like transactional systems, relational databases, and operational databases) into one place. Once it’s in the warehouse, it’s accessible and usable across the business to get a holistic view of your customers. When your data is in one place, you can analyze related data from different sources, make better predictions, and ultimately make better business decisions.
There are two ways to go about implementing a new data warehouse. You can have one on-premise, designed and maintained by your team at your physical location, or you can use a cloud data warehouse—one that lives entirely online and doesn’t require any physical hardware. Cloud data warehouse architecture makes it easier to implement and scale, and they’re typically less expensive than on-premise data warehouse systems. We’ll go more into what to consider and your options for the best data warehouses below.
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