Companies must set the proper infrastructure from the beginning to ensure the warehouse remains simple to maintain, iterate and use, despite increasing complexity over time. Increasing complexity should be expected and planned for. Legacy systems are no longer restricted to mainframe operational systems. They could be other data warehouses that result from mergers and acquisitions or existing data warehouses. The closer the vendor's product is to the end user, the more beneficial it is to understand the customer's business.
Customers seek product selection leadership from their lead vendors.
The most significant future trends for data warehouse involve growth in complexity and usage, arrival of more casual users, data mining, Web access, the desire for more active warehouses and the integration of data marts into the warehouse environment. Gloria Lee, is a consultant in Sunnyvale, CA, who provides marketing consulting to data warehousing vendors.