The data warehouse is used as a single source of truth for an organization’s data. But before choosing a data warehouse provider, there are some things to consider, including your business needs.
Companies that want to stay competitive need to fully embrace data. What looks like an endless collection of numbers, names, letters and symbols is actually a wealth of insights about your business and your customers. However, to discover those insights, data must be extracted, stored and analyzed.
Unfortunately, this process is often complicated. Businesses generate an overwhelming amount of data every day. And that data comes from multiple sources, all at once.
The data warehouse is an excellent solution. Data warehouses allow companies to merge data from multiple sources into a single source of truth. The warehouse then uses ELT (extract, load, transform) to prepare the data for proper analysis. Warehouse solutions also provide data reporting and visualization capabilities to help organizations gain insights quickly.
SEE: Best ETL Tools and Software 2022 (TechRepublic)
There are many data warehouse solutions available today, including Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, and more. But before choosing a supplier, there are some things to consider.
Start Here: Cloud vs On-Premise Data Warehousing
There are two main types of cloud warehouse solutions, including cloud-based warehouses and on-premise warehouses. Cloud-based warehouses are hosted in a public or private cloud, while on-premises warehouses are stored on your own servers. You want to determine which route is best for your business.
While on-premise solutions are typically chosen for security and compliance requirements, many organizations choose cloud-based warehouses for their scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency.
SEE: What does a data warehouse in the cloud look like? (TechRepublic)
Questions to answer before searching for a supplier
Once you’ve determined where to host your warehouse, there are some questions to answer about the type of data to store, your current tech stack, and more, including:
- What type of data (structured, semi-structured, relational, non-relational, etc.) should you store?
- Where does that data come from? In other words, what are your data sources?
- Do you need a cloud-based solution that is compatible with your current tech stack?
- What legal or compliance requirements may affect the warehouse solution you choose?
- How often do you need access to your data? What tasks do you need to perform during that access?
By answering these questions, you can determine what to look for when looking for data warehouse solutions and communicating with suppliers.
Selecting an IT supplier is always a challenging process. Fortunately, the experts at TechRepublic Premium have put together a complete guide to selecting a cloud data warehouse solution that’s right for your organization. The guide takes a closer look at everything to consider and includes a checklist you can use as you test drive what’s for sale.
Download the Cloud data warehouse guide and checklist on TechRepublic Premium
Additional resources for any data-driven organization
Selecting a data warehouse solution is another step towards a data-driven organization. Another step to take is to make sure you have policies in place to protect your data. Below are three TechRepublic Premium resources that you can use to develop this policy for your business.
Electronic Data Erasure Policy
Data has a longer lifespan than the devices we use every day to access it. Serious security risks can arise if data is not properly deleted before these devices are retired or reassigned. Just deleting a file or deleting the data from the device is not enough. Therefore, a robust electronic data deletion policy is critical.
This Electronic Data Erasure Policy emphasizes how data should be erased and what steps should be taken. In addition, you can use this policy as an example to develop your own policy.
Download the Electronic Data Erasure Policy on TechRepublic Premium
End User Data Backup Policy
End users use laptops, phones and other devices to access the data stored on them on a daily basis. Unfortunately, loss, theft, or malfunction of those devices can lead to serious data loss, which can negatively impact business operations. Frequent backups of this data are important to protect it.
This policy highlights the steps required for data backup and allows you to outline the specific roles and responsibilities of the staff.
Download the End User Data Backup Policy on TechRepublic Premium
Data Encryption Policy
To truly protect your data, encryption at rest and on the go is a necessity. Encryption ensures that even if someone gains unauthorized access to your company’s emails, files, application data or other material, they cannot read it.
This sample policy defines the encryption requirements to be used on all devices, including computers, servers, laptops, and more. In addition, it can be adapted to your specific organization.
Download the Data Encryption Policy on TechRepublic Premium
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