What are the 5 reasons that business analysis is difficult from operational databases?

In the 1990s as organizations began to need more timely information about their business, they found that traditional operational information systems were too cumbersome to provide relevant information efficiently and quickly. Operational systems typically include accounting, order entry, customer service, and sales and are not appropriate for business analysis for the following reasons:

What are the 5 reasons that business analysis is difficult from operational databases?
What are the 5 reasons that business analysis is difficult from operational databases?
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Sorry, I Didn't Mean to Post Your Social Security Number on the Internet

Programming 101 teaches all students that security is the crucial part of any system. You must secure your data! It appears that some people working for the state of Oklahoma forgot this important lesson when tens of thousands of Oklahoma residents had their sensitive data—including numbers—posted on the Internet for the general public to access. You have probably heard this type of report before, but have you heard that the error went unnoticed for three years? A programmer reported the problem, explaining how he could easily change the page his browser was pointing to and grab the entire database for the state of Oklahoma. Also, because of the programming, malicious users could easily tamper with the database by changing data or adding fictitious data. If you are still thinking that isn't such a big deal, it gets worse. The website also posted the Sexual and Violent Offender Registry. Yes, the Department of Corrections employee data were also available for the general public to review.

   Why is it important to secure data? What can happen if someone accesses your customer database? What could happen if someone changes the information in your customer database and adds fictitious data? Who should be held responsible for the state of Oklahoma data breech? What are the business risks associated with data security?

 

Information from other operational applications is not included.

 

Operational systems are not integrated, or not available in one place.

 

Operational information is mainly current—does not include the history that is required to make good decisions.

 

Operational information frequently has quality issues (errors)—the information needs to be cleansed.

 

Without information history, it is difficult to tell how and why things change over time.

 

Operational systems are not designed for analysis and decision support.

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There is a classic line in the movie All the President's Men, which covers the Watergate investigation, where Deep Throat meets with Bob Woodward and coolly advises him to “follow the money.” Woodward follows the money, and the Watergate investigation ends with President Nixon's resignation.

   If you want to find out what is happening in today's data-filled world, you could probably change those words to “follow the data.” IDC reports that the amount of information stored in the digital universe is projected to hit nearly 1.8 zettabytes by 2011, representing a tenfold increase in five years. One of the newest forms of legal requirements emerging from the data explosion is ediscovery, the legal requirements mandating that an organization must archive all forms of software communications, including email, text messages, and multimedia. Yes, the text message you sent four years ago could come back to haunt you.

   Organizations today have more data than they know what to do with and are frequently overwhelmed with data management. Getting at such data and presenting them in a useful manner for cogent analysis is a tremendous task that haunts managers. What do you think is involved in data management? What is contained in the zettabytes of data stored by organizations? Why would an organization store data? How long should an organization store its data? What are the risks associated with failing to store organizational data?

   During the latter half of the 20th century, the numbers and types of databases increased. Many large businesses found themselves with information scattered across multiple platforms and variations of technology, making it almost impossible for any one individual to use information from multiple sources. Completing reporting requests across operational systems could take days or weeks using antiquated reporting tools that were designed more or less to execute the business rather than run the business. From this idea, the data warehouse was born as a place where relevant information could be held for completing strategic reports for management. The key here is the word strategic as most executives were less concerned with the day-to-day operations than they were with a more overall look at the model and business functions.

   A key idea within data warehousing is to take information from multiple platforms/technologies (as varied as spreadsheets, databases, and word files) and place them in a common location that uses a common querying tool. In this way operational databases could be held on whatever system was most efficient for the operational business, while the reporting/strategic information could be held in a common location using a common language. Data warehouses take this a step further by giving the information itself commonality by defining what each term means and keeping it standard. An example of this would be gender, which can be referred to in many ways (Male, Female, M/F, 1/0), but should be standardized on a data warehouse with one common way of referring to each sex (M/F).

   This design makes decision support more readily available without affecting day-to-day operations. One aspect of a data warehouse that should be stressed is that it is not a location for all a business's information, but rather a location for information that is interesting, or information that will assist decision makers in making strategic decisions relative to the organization's overall mission.

   Data warehousing is about extending the transformation of data into information. Data warehouses offer strategic level, external, integrated, and historical information so businesses can make projections, identify trends, and decide key business issues. The data warehouse collects and stores integrated sets of historical information from multiple operational systems and feeds them to one or more data marts. It may also provide end-user access to support enterprisewide views of information.

What is an operational database used for?

An operational database management system is software that is designed to allow users to easily define, modify, retrieve, and manage data in real-time. While conventional databases rely on batch processing, operational database systems are oriented toward real-time, transactional operations.

What is operational database example?

Operational databases are used to store, manage and track real-time business information. For example, a company might have an operational database used to track warehouse/stock quantities.

Which of the following represent the five common characteristics of high quality information check all that apply?

Five characteristics of high quality information are accuracy, completeness, consistency, uniqueness, and timeliness. Information needs to be of high quality to be useful and accurate.

In which ways does a data warehouse enable business users to be more effective?

Data warehouses offer the most reliable and accurate way for businesses to store and access structured data; this in turn improves cross-organizational data access via reports, dashboards, and analytics tools.