From the beginning, our goal has been to provide applications that are easy to use, accurate and reliable. In two years, we've learned several lessons about data warehousing and managing distributed data that Texas Commerce Bank may find helpful. While developing our warehouse, we encountered many technical problems and shortcomings. Better to find these problems in a decision-support system than when students are trying to register for classes. No longer are we thinking about screen access, but about sets of records and multiple windows.
Security also costs money.
Don't think of a warehouse as a panacea for all your data woes. We decided to build one data warehouse because that was the only feasible way to effectively manage our data assets. With multiple data warehouses, supported by multiple departments, there's always the risk of integration problems and different data definitions. I recommend building one centralized warehouse that offers a better opportunity to integrate the data. Integration has given us new levels of customer service.