The main difference between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence is that the Data Warehouse is a central location that is used to store consolidated data from multiple data sources, while the Business Intelligence is a set of strategies and technologies to analyze and visualize data to make business decisions.
Generally, data is important for every organization. And, it becomes meaningful information after processing. Analyzing data helps to increase profits and to make business insights. A data warehouse is a system that stores a large amount of data. On the other hand, Business Intelligence is a set of technologies and strategies to use the data in the warehouses to make decisions.
Key Areas Covered
1. What is Data Warehouse
-Definition, Functionality
2. What is Business Intelligence
– Definition, Functionality
3. Relationship Between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence
-Outline the common association
4. Difference Between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence
-Comparison of key differences
Key Terms
Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse
What is Data Warehouse
A data warehouse is a system that supports the business intelligence process. It transforms data into meaningful information. The senior management uses this information to make decisions and to analyze the business. Furthermore, the organization can increase the customer base and profits based on this information.
A business organization has multiple data sources. There can be databases such as MSSQL, MySQL, and Oracle. All data collected from different sources are extracted, transformed and loaded into a data warehouse. We call this process ETL. Then, that data is integrated and processed to make valuable business insights.
All the data present in a data warehouse is divided into small sections called data marts. Each data mart consists of data required by a specific set of users. For example, the financial department and the Human Resource department will have different data marts. Likewise, it is possible to separate data. Thus, it increases security and data integrity.
What is Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence is a collection of strategies and technologies to analyze and present data. Also, it uses various tools and applications to arrange data gathered from various internal and external sources. Furthermore, it executes queries on data. And, it also allows creating reports and makes dashboards to visualize data to analyze. Thus, it facilitates executives and senior managers to make better business decisions.
Business Intelligence is capable of interpreting big data. Therefore, it can handle a large amount of structured and unstructured data. Thus, organizations use Business Intelligence to make operational and strategic business decisions. Some operational decisions are product positioning and pricing, whereas priorities, goals and directions are some strategic decisions.
Relationship Between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence applications use data gathered from data warehouses.
Difference Between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence
Definition
Data Warehouse is a federal repository for all the data collected by an enterprise’s various operational systems. Whereas, Business Intelligence (BI) is the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the analysis of business information. Thus, this is the main difference between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence.
Type
While data warehouse is a storage, business intelligence is a set of technologies and strategies.
Data
Moreover, a data warehouse gets data from multiple data sources, whereas business intelligence gets data from data warehouses or data marts. Hence, this is another difference between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence.
Representation of Data
Besides, the data warehouse presents data in tables, while business intelligence presents data as reports, charts and graphs.
Users
Data Engineers, data and business analysts use data warehouses, whereas top executives and senior managers use business intelligence.
Usage
Importantly, data warehouse helps to store data into one central location for analyzing. But, on the other hand, business intelligence helps to identify, develop and create new strategic business opportunities.
Conclusion
The main difference between Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence is that the data warehouse is a central location that is used to store consolidated data from multiple data sources, whereas business intelligence is a set of strategies and technologies to analyze and visualize data to make business decisions. In brief, business intelligence use data stored in data warehouses.
References:
1.“Business Intelligence.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2019, Available here.
2.“What Is Business Intelligence (BI)? – Definition from WhatIs.com.” SearchBusinessAnalytics, Available here.
3.“Data Warehouse.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Mar. 2019, Available here.
Image Courtesy:
1.”Reference architecture for a data warehouse” By DataZoomers – (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia
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