I feel embarrassed to ask, but I could use some help with getting good definitions for some database concepts.
(I thought I knew all of these, but the more I Google, the more I realize there seem to be 10,000 different definitions?!) :-/
[B]1.) What is the difference between a “Data Warehouse” and “OLPT”??
2.) What is the difference between “Business Intelligence (BI)” and “Decision Support Systems (DSS)”??
3.) What is “Informatics” and how is it different than a “Data Warehouse” and “Business Intelligence (BI)” and “Decision Support Systems (DSS)”??
[/B]
After reading online all afternoon, the lines between DW and Data Marts and BI and DSS and Executive Support Systems and Informatics is [b]VERY BLURRY[/b]…
Thanks,
Debbie
P.S. I understand the concept of a Data Warehouse and how it differs from a traditional Relational Database.
“Business Intelligence (BI)” and "Decision Support Systems (DSS)- same thing, I think. It/they provide useful data to support your business, let you see what is going on with trends.
Informatics, is how do you handle data and analyse it. So it’s not a data warehouse (that holds the data you want to analyse)
So that links supports my suspicions in that “OLAP” and “Data Warehouse” as synonymous, right?
(It seems like OLAP vs OLTP is one “perspective” or “view” of databases, and “Data Warehouse” vs “Relational Database” is another comparison/view/perspective.
While it appears that OLAP is another name for Data Warehouse, I guess each term is used in different contexts…)
“Business Intelligence (BI)” and "Decision Support Systems (DSS)- same thing, I think. It/they provide useful data to support your business, let you see what is going on with trends.
That is the best I can tell, although “BI” is one of the most voluminous terms out there in IT?!
Informatics, is how do you handle data and analyse it. So it’s not a data warehouse (that holds the data you want to analyse)
I read up on “Informatics” and came up with something like this for work…
“Health Informatics is the discipline of using Information Systems to gather, manage, process, and store medical information in the care and treatment of patients. It touches areas including claims processing, managed health care, medical diagnosis, treat, wellness and many others. Health Care Informatics ultimately strives to reduce health care costs will maximizing patient treatment, recovery, and well-being.”
(I came up with a better definition but it is back on my desk at work!!)
For informatics - imagine you have a database with 10,000,000 rows for sales across the country, and you wish to find trends within this mass of data. Informatics is the science / theory of how do you create a database and a query find this sort of thing. It’s more a way of how do you tackle this problem
OLAP vs OLTP
OLAP is the analyse (the A) of a huge mass of data in a big data warehouse. 100s of millions of rows of data might get analysed
OLTP is the insert of one or two lines of data at a time, or a query to find the available items of a given type, the database might only be a couple of thousand rows. An online shop, or your supermarket use OLTP. The database is updated a little bit at a time, every second, or dozens of times per second. You buy a camera, your details and the single item bought are added at that moment.
A data warehouse might only get updated once a week, but the update could be a couple of million rows being added in one go. It could be all the sales that week in all Walmarts across the country being added. Not your individual sale as it happens.
OLAP is NOT another name for a data warehouse, it is a technique for analysing tens of millions of rows of data and extracting useful info from the data warehouse. So they do go together. From this useful info you decide what the company will do - will we sell red, blue and black widgets, or just blue and black widgets. What sort of person buys red widgets and why are they only sold in one state and nowhere else? Do we continue to make red widgets???
The decision support bit is let’s present this info on widget sales country wide, in ways that we can spot trends, and help the company make a decision. This is business information, it supports a company wide decision. You or I just want to know the cost of that one camera and the postage of it. But the company needs a wider picture than where I bought this one or that one on thursday.
It is embarrassing that I’ve spent all these decades working with computers and I had never heard the term “Informatics” before until starting a new contract this past week?!
OLAP vs OLTP
OLAP is the analyse (the A) of a huge mass of data in a big data warehouse. 100s of millions of rows of data might get analysed
OLTP is the insert of one or two lines of data at a time, or a query to find the available items of a given type, the database might only be a couple of thousand rows. An online shop, or your supermarket use OLTP. The database is updated a little bit at a time, every second, or dozens of times per second. You buy a camera, your details and the single item bought are added at that moment.
A data warehouse might only get updated once a week, but the update could be a couple of million rows being added in one go. It could be all the sales that week in all Walmarts across the country being added. Not your individual sale as it happens.
Yes, that part I understand.
OLAP is NOT another name for a data warehouse, it is a technique for analysing tens of millions of rows of data and extracting useful info from the data warehouse. So they do go together.
Okay, but OLTP would never go with a Data Warehouse, right?
And OLAP would never go with a Relational Database, right?
The decision support bit is let’s present this info on widget sales country wide, in ways that we can spot trends, and help the company make a decision. This is business information, it supports a company wide decision. You or I just want to know the cost of that one camera and the postage of it. But the company needs a wider picture than where I bought this one or that one on thursday.
I understand that, but how does BI differ from DSS differ from Executive Support Systems (ESS)?
many labels were invented either by companies seeking to advance their own agendas and stand out from the competition, or by TLA-happy industry wonks who like to compartmentalize
especially in the BI/DSS/DW area – it’s a buzzword minefield
concentrate more on what you want to build, not what to call it
many labels were invented either by companies seeking to advance their own agendas and stand out from the competition, or by TLA-happy industry wonks who like to compartmentalize
especially in the BI/DSS/DW area – it’s a buzzword minefield
Yeah, that area of IT seems to be “buzzword central”.
concentrate more on what you want to build, not what to call it
Yeah. I was just trying to refresh my memory for work, because after realizing that I had never heard of “Informatics” I became very embarrassed and wanted to make sure that I understood all of the terms and concepts surrounding that topic.
Thanks,
Debbie
P.S. I’ll be waiting for you to get back to me on those “pickup bed” tips you alluded to earlier…
INFORMATICS:
Technology group dealing with the collection, analysis, management and sharing of clinical patient data among various areas within <company> as well as its partners. The emphasis is on using Information Systems to support data-driven medical & business decisions which reduce costs while improving patient care and wellness.
Don’t get mislead by the clinical patient bit and other medical bits or company bits. It applies to data, just ordinary data. Below is the only bit that matters. It’s not some special medical thing.
INFORMATICS:
Technology group dealing with the collection, analysis, management and sharing of data.
