Single View of the Truth

DM Review, January, 2008 by David Raab

One of the bedrock goals of data warehouse projects is a single version of the truth. Yet truth is rarely so simple. In the classic example, a “customer” is one thing to a salesperson, another to the shipping department and something else to accounts payable. Good data warehouse designers recognize this and build different definitions into their systems, so users can access whichever version they need whenever they need it.Yet the notion of a single version of the truth persists - and warehouse teams invest huge resources negotiating shared business models to define it. Why?

Dueling Spreadsheets

The problem is often described as “dueling spreadsheets,” where managers argue over whose data is correct. This is apparently something to avoid at all costs.

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