Data wareh ouses and data marts tend to grow at an amazing rate. As they grow, the volume of data that finds its way into the data warehouse becomes an obstacle to success. With this growth comes a slowdown in performance and an increase in budget. Soon the organization comes to the realization that the data warehouse infrastructure needs to be managed. One of those peculiarities is that of dormant data that creeps into the warehouse.
Dormant data is data that is never used.
In the early stages of a warehouse, there is little dormant data. But as time passes, the amount of dormant data increases to the point that there is much more dormant data in the warehouse than data that is actively being used. At this point, the dormant data needs to b e archived in order to keep processing streamlined. Other management issues include the need to constantly monitor and cleanse data as it enters the warehouse and as it resides in the warehouse. As corporations mature in their understanding of the warehouse environment, one obvious technology that emerges as being very important is metadata.