Items representing facts, text, graphics, bit-mapped images, sound, analog or digital live-video segments. Data is the raw material of a system supplied by data producers and is used by information consumers to create information.

The process of accessing the data warehouse database objects using various tools such as analysis, reporting, query, statistical, and data mining.

An end-user oriented tool that allows users to build SQL queries by pointing and clicking on a list of tables and fields in the data warehouse.

Software that provides a logical view of data in a warehouse. Some create simple aliases for table and column names; others create data that identify the contents and location of data in the warehouse.

The process of extracting, transforming, and transporting data from the source systems and external data sources to the data warehouse database objects.

The process of managing the institutional data in order to provide reliable, accurate, secure and accessible data to meet strategic and management needs at all levels of the enterprise. It is the purpose of this process to improve the accuracy, reliability, and security of the institution's data; reduce data redundancy; provide ease of access, assuring that data are easily located, accessible once located, and clearly defined; and to provide data standards. It is also the purpose of the Data administration function to educate the user community on institutional data policies and to encourage the responsible use of data.

The individual assigned the responsibility of operating systems, data centers, data warehouses, operational databases, and business operations in conformance with the policies and practices prescribed by the data owner.

A database about data and database structures. A catalog of all data elements, containing their names, structures, and information about their usage. A central location for metadata. Normally, data dictionaries are designed to store a limited set of available metadata, concentrating on the information relating to the data elements, databases, files and programs of implemented systems.

The process of redefining data into a summarization based on some rules or criteria. Aggregation may also encompass de-normalization for data access and retrieval.

A collection of data, usually in the form of tables or files, under the control of a database management

The collective application and database instances that comprise the complete system.

A person (or group of people) responsible for the maintenance and performance of a database.

A mechanism to locate and access data within a database. An index may quote one or more columns and be a means of enforcing uniqueness on their values.

One set of database management processes and an allocated area in memory for managing those processes. Typically, a database instance is associated with one database. Note that a database instance may process data for one or more applications.

A software environment that structures and manipulates data, and ensures data security, recovery, and integrity.

The transformation of data in its current state to a pre-defined, standardized format using packaged software or program modules.

The specification of a data element to be maintained. The specification includes datatype, size, and rules about processing: for example, derivation and validation

A part of a database that holds definitions of data elements, such as tables, columns, and views.

The process of pulling data from operational and external data sources in order to prepare the source data for the data warehouse environment.

The most elementary unit of data that can be identified and described in a dictionary or repository which cannot be subdivided.

Software that reads one or more sources of data and creates a new image of the data.

A diagram that shows the normal flow of data between services as well as the flow of data between data stores and services.

The process of populating the data warehouse. Data loading is provided by DBMS-specific load processes, DBMS insert processes, and independent fast load processes.

Controlling, protecting, and facilitating access to data in order to provide information consumers with timely access to the data they need. The functions provided by a database management system.

Software that converts data into a unified format by taking derived data to create new fields, merging files, summarizing and filtering data; the process of reading data from operational systems. Data Management Software is also known as data extraction software.

The process of assigning a source data element to a target data element.

A technique for expressing the significant dataflows of a business system.

The movement of data between two co-existing systems. The interfacing of this data may occur once every hour, once a day, etc.

The quality of the data residing in the database objects. The measurement which users consider when analyzing the value and reliability of the data.

Verification that converted data is accurate and functions correctly within a single subsystem or application.

A technique for establishing a match, or balance, between the source data and the target data warehouse database object. This technique identifies data shortfalls and recognizes data issues.

A data warehouse data class organized for a business functional area or department. The database contains data summarized at multiple levels of granularity and may be designed using relational or multidimensional database structures.

The logical representation of the specific information requirements organized around a department of functional area.

The movement of data from one database to another database -- but not necessarily to a working application or subsystem tables.

A representation of the specific information requirements of a business area; see also ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODEL.

A method used to define and analyze data requirements needed to support the business functions of an enterprise. These data requirements are recorded as a conceptual data model with associated data definitions. Data modeling defines the relationships between data elements and structures.

The individual responsible for the policy and practice decisions of data. For business data, the individual may be called a business owner of the data.

A technique to improve application performance or security by splitting tables across multiple locations.

The master copy of the data associated with a business object. Several databases may share access to a common data registry to ensure consistency and eliminate redundant entries across multiple applications and databases. An example of a data registry would be a shared customer master. All updates and changes would be made to the customer master data registry and then propagated to subscribing sites. All systems requiring customer information would interface with the customer data registry.

A process of rotating the view of data.

An interface that transfers data registry data between similar or dissimilar applications.

The copying of data to and from sites to improve local service response times and availability; frequently employed as part of a backup and recovery strategy.

A temporary or permanent storage concept for logical data items used by specified business functions and processes.

The process of manipulating or cleaning data into a standard format. This process may be done in conjunction with other data acquisition tasks.

An operational system, third-party organization, or external system that provides the data to support the information requirements of the client. The data source is accessed during the data acquisition process.

For an item that is populated across multiple systems (like social security number) name the source system.

The physical movement of data between applications, perhaps across sites.

An enterprise structured repository of subject-oriented, time-variant, historical data used for information retrieval and decision support. The data warehouse stores atomic and summary data. The data warehouse is the source data stored in the data marts.

A software service, organization, or person that provides data for update to a system-of-record.

The process of copying a portion of a database from one environment to another and keeping the subsequent copies of the data in sync with the original source. Changes made to the original source are propagated to the copies of the data in other environments.

The process of filtering, merging, decoding, and translating source data to create validated data for the data warehouse.

The process of moving data from one environment to another environment. An environment may be an application system or operating environment. See Data Transport.

Creating "information" from data. This includes decoding production data and merging of records from multiple DBMS formats. It is also known as data scrubbing or data cleansing.

The mechanism that moves data from a source to target environment. See Data Transfer.

The process of designing, building, and maintaining a data warehouse system.

A person or group of people that administer and manage a data warehouse

The logical representation of the historical information requirements structured for the enterprise.

The process on reconciling each data warehouse increment with the strategic data warehouse architecture.

A structured method for full life-cycle custom development data warehouse projects.

The process of ensuring correct data based on error and exception handling rules. This process directly impacts data integrity.

An application primarily used to consolidate, summarize, or transform transaction data to support analytical reporting and trend analysis.

A tangible, measurable output of a task.

A database design activity that restructures a database by introducing derived data, replicated data, and/or repeating data to tune an application system and increase performance.

The relationship of one task to another where the start or end date of the second task (successor) is constrained by the start or end date of the first (predecessor).

A value that is derived by some algorithm from the values of other attributes; for example, profit, which is the difference between revenue and expense.

A value derived by some algorithm from the values of other columns; see also DERIVED ATTRIBUTE, DERIVED DATA ITEM , and DERIVED FIELD. Derived Data Item A value derived by some algorithm from the values of other data items; for example, profit, which is the difference between revenue and expense.

A multidimensional structure which represents a side of a multidimensional cube. Each dimension represents a different category, such as region, time, product type. Discovery The evaluation and validation of the implemented data warehouse increment, experiences and lessons learned, and scope for next increment to be developed.

A table that contains discrete values (usually a countable text field like school or degree). Also see fact table. Imagine viewing a spreadsheet. The row and column names would be the dimensions and the numeric data within would be the facts.

A type of data modeling suited for data warehousing. In a dimensional model, there are two types of tables: dimensional tables and fact tables. Dimensional table records information on each dimension, and fact table records all the "fact", or measures.

A database that is physically located on more than one computer processor. It is connected via some form of communications network. An essential feature of a true distributed database is that users or programs work as if they had access to the whole database locally.

The ability to have several computers working together in a network, where each processor runs different activities for a user, as required.

A set of business validation rules, format constraints, and other properties that apply to a group of attributes or database columns; for example: a list of values, a range, a qualified list or range, or any combination of these.