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Rising Tide in the Data Warehouse vs. Data Mart Debate  

Is building an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) the best path to business intelligence (BI)? It’s a perennially vexing question that — thanks to a couple of recent trends in BI and data warehousing (DW) — has taken on new life.

The value of the full-fledged EDW seems unassailable. Over the last half-decade, however, some of the biggest EDW champions have moderated their stances, such that they now both countenance the existence of alternatives and, under certain very special conditions, are even willing to admit they’re useful. The result is that although the EDW is still seen as the Holy Grail of data warehousing, departmental (and even enterprise) data marts are now countenanced as well.

Active EDW giant Teradata Inc. is the foremost case in point, but other players — including relative newcomer Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), which is in the high-end DW segment (by its acquisition of Knightsbridge Solutions) and markets Neoview, a DW appliance-like offering — are staking out similar ground. (In addition to Neoview, HP also partners with both Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. to market appliances in the 1 to 32 TB range.)

Interesting debate on TDWI.