Data Warehouse Software

Do the following situations sound familiar?

• Your business uses many applications, which makes it difficult to combine the data from all these varied software.
  
• Your business is growing and so is your data, making it difficult for you to handle the numerous reports each day.
  
• You've spotted errors in recent reports and are starting to doubt the accuracy of your current reporting methods.

These are among the many challenges that small businesses face when managing data.

So, how can I overcome these data management challenges?

One option is to hire more people to manage the increasing volume of data. But this is expensive and there are still chances of human error. The easier alternative is to use data warehouse software. It integrates data from multiple data sources and reduces the processing time for reports and queries.

With data warehouse software, small businesses can significantly improve the accuracy of their business reports and the speed of creating them. It ensures that reports are available instantly, which is essential for quick, informed decision making.

We created this buyer's guide to help you select the right software for your business. The guide offers you all the vital information you need before purchasing a solution.

Here's what we'll cover:

What Is Data Warehouse Software?
Common Features of Data Warehouse Software
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Benefits of Data Warehouse Software
Key Considerations
Pricing and Purchasing Options
Market Trends to Understand

What Is Data Warehouse Software?

It is a database management solution built for business intelligence (BI) applications. The software speeds up the reporting process by storing data using methods that optimize data usage later. It performs the following functions:

• Combines operational data from multiple sources such as spreadsheets, websites and social media accounts.
  
• Indexes the data warehouse so that you can reference the data when needed.
  
• Creates data models that improve the speed of query processing.

Data warehouse architecture in Dimodelo (Source)

Common Features of Data Warehouse Software

To get the best results from the software, make sure that it offers features relevant to your business. The following table lists the basic features of data warehouse management solutions. You should identify the relevant features so that you're able to shortlist solutions that offer these features.

Data integration	Combines data from different sources and stores it in a central location.
Extract, transform and load (ETL)	Refers to the process of loading data from different sources into the warehouse. It involves a series of data operations and instructions that designate the location for all the stored data.
Data modeling	Creates "data cubes" from the raw data in the warehouse. Data cubes equip the data warehouse with a pre-calculated dataset, which reduces the number of calculations and the time needed to process reports.
Standard SQL support	Lets you run SQL queries on the data stored in the warehouse.
Analytics/Built-in reports	Allows you to create customizable reports based on the data fields in the warehouse.
Machine learning support	Runs machine learning algorithms on the warehouse data to perform predictive analytics and forecasting.

What Type of Buyer Are You?

We've classified data warehouse software buyers into two categories:

Small businesses. This category includes small business owners and team managers. These buyers have limited technical expertise and need to build a simple application infrastructure. They need a solution that's easy to deploy, learn and use. It should also help them scale-up without the help of consultants and IT experts.

IT users in enterprises. These buyers usually come from midsize and large businesses. They have many business apps such as CRM and HR software, and as a result, in-house IT staff to manage these different applications. They need a solution that integrates with all the key software being used in their business.

Before starting your search for data warehouse solutions, identify your category so that you can shortlist suitable solutions. You can also contact Software Advice on (855) 998-8505 and speak to an advisor to get relevant suggestions.

Benefits of Data Warehouse Software

If you are a small business that's struggling with your report creation process, this software will ease your workload and speed-up your reporting process. Here are the other key benefits of using a data warehouse solution:

• It serves as a central repository of all your business data. It ensures that the raw data is accessible in one place. Also, only authorized employees are able to access the reports.
  
• It eliminates having to manually combine data from different sources, which is time-consuming and prone to human error.
  
• It employs data models that make the analysis engine faster, helping you create reports quickly and accurately.

Key Considerations

The primary benefit of data warehouse software is that it makes your processes more efficient. But it depends on choosing the right vendor. To avoid purchasing the wrong solution and wasting your resources, review these key considerations. These will help you select the right solution for your business.

• Ease of scalability. As your business grows, you will need more storage and processing capabilities. Invest in a data warehouse management solution that lets you scale-up easily, based on your growing data needs.
  
• Focus on data security. The software is a repository of your critical business data, which makes it susceptible to hacking. To protect your data from potential breaches, ensure that the solution has data encryption and other data security protocols.
  
• Integration with existing BI infrastructure. If you use a BI or data visualization solution, make sure that your data warehouse solution integrates seamlessly with these tools.

Pricing and Purchasing Options

Due to various factors, the pricing of data warehouse software is more complex than that of other types of BI software. Cloud-based and on-premise solutions have different charges. Therefore, consider all of the following factors when estimating the total cost of data warehouse software:

• Number of data integrations. The number of data sources (i.e., data integrations) is a key pricing for many data warehousing solutions. A higher number of data connections means that the vendor needs to offer greater technical complexity, based on which they will charge you.
  
• Data storage capacity. Most cloud-based data warehousing solutions charge based on the data storage volume. Storing data on the cloud is usually priced as per GB, which reflects in the overall pricing of the data warehousing solution. If you use an on-premise system, you may have to purchase your own servers and data storage devices. However, these costs will not reflect in your license pricing.
  
• Rows of data. Some cloud-based and on-premise products charge you for the number of rows or entries in the database.
  
• Computing ability. Some cloud-based data warehousing solutions (such as Amazon Redshift) may charge you based on the computing ability. It's measured as gigabytes per second (GBPS) or terabytes per second (TBPS).
  
• Deployment regions. Due to regional differences in pricing, cloud-based data warehousing solutions may charge differently for data stored in the U.S. or other countries. If your businesses has an international presence, you should keep this in mind when estimating the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Market Trends to Understand

To stay competitive, you should be aware of the recent market trends. You should also make sure that your shortlisted vendor is building new features to incorporate these market trends. Here are the two primary trends in data warehousing software industry:

Machine learning to optimize query loads.

Machine learning improves the speed of query processing in a data warehouse solution. For instance, Amazon Redshift uses machine learning algorithms to estimate the run time of incoming queries. This allows it to perform smart query allocation for each queue, thereby optimizing the run-time of a query. We expect this functionality to become a core software feature by 2022.

IoT to drive up adoption. Managing enormous data volumes and analytics are the biggest challenges in the Internet of things (IoT). Data warehouse software employs data models that allow faster analytics of IoT data. The increasing demand for IoT among small businesses will fuel the demand for data warehousing software by 2023.