Growing data volumes present problems for data warehouse projects

A'dam - Feb, 28th 2007 - Many companies are seeing very significant increases in data volumes and these are having an impact on their data warehouse programmes, according to the latest survey from PMP Research. The research has been commissioned by the Evaluation Centre (www.evaluationcentre.com).

Most of the organisations polled (68%) report that data volumes have increased substantially over the past three years, with a further 25% indicating more modest rises. Only 2% reckon that data volumes have stayed constant over that time period.

Half (54%) of the sample have already initiated data warehousing projects, with 10% currently evaluating their options and 22% considering such a development. One in five has started a programme within the past year, while a quarter (24%) have had a data warehousing programme for the past two years and the same proportion (24%) for between three and five years.

The main reason for implementing a data warehouse emerges as the desire to improve the flow of management information, cited by 61%. However, the accuracy and reliability of corporate information remains a crucial issue for many, with 28% admitting that data quality was ‘bad' prior to implementing a data warehouse.

Just 10% describe their data quality as ‘good' before implementation, and none believe it was ‘excellent'. In contrast, after implementing a data warehouse, the majority (45%) now report that data quality is ‘good' and 6% say it is ‘excellent'.

Making improvements on this scale takes time, with 16% of companies spending up to 12 months cleaning up their data and 13% more than a year. There are clear benefits from this exercise, though, as 48% now report no difficulties in analysing the data obtained from their data warehouse.