WHAT IS DATA VAULT?
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Data Warehousing that’s Predictable, Repeatable and Scalable



Anyone who has dealt with an Enterprise Data Warehouse understands the pain of managing and interacting with them. Loading, validating and managing data in an ever-changing business environment is an ongoing, yet specialised and complex, task. This means that it is costly, frustrating, and laborious for both the business and IT however, there is another way.

Data Vault 2.0 is a unique system of data warehousing that was created from the ground up to deal with the real-world data challenges that most businesses are facing today. DV 2.0 delivers improved Total Cost Ownership, greatly enhanced operational agility, and traceable data governance.


So why is Data Vault 2.0 different from other approaches.

Enterprise Data Warehouses (EDWs) offer a highly governed and structured approach, but this structure makes them ‘personnel heavy’ and slows both data ingestion and ad hoc business reporting. The larger the business, and the older the warehouse, the greater the complexity. Faced with today’s big data challenges, many traditional EDWs are struggling to keep up with the constantly changing demands of the businesses they serve.

On the other end of the scale, Data Lakes offer a fast way to load data into the system and easy access to it. At first sight this seems like a clear solution to the data management problem; however it is often a false economy because initial savings can be outweighed by the need to constantly validate and verify later. Additionally, Data Scientists (rare and expensive resources) are needed to fish the required facts from the lake. In addition as more data goes in, and the more that new insights become BAU features, a failure to understand the need for governance, quality, context, and security/access can quickly pollute your data lake; turning it into a data swamp.


Delivering The Best Of Both Worlds

The Data Vault 2.0 methodology is different from traditional approaches: offering the ability to support business intelligence with both governance and agility. It achieves this by abstracting your business rules from the datasets beneath it. This means that as your business changes, or you want to test, model or query, you can easily modify the rules and quickly generate the results you need. This is a stark contrast from traditional processes that bake the business rules into the data as it's loaded.

Because of the simplified model, automatic code generation, and abstracted business rules, loading new data into a Data Vault is significantly less labour intensive. The speed of load, combined with the ease with which new reports can be created (typically around half the time) delivers a solid improvement in total cost of ownership. By adopting DV 2.0 you can typically half your IT headcount across development and testing. Data Vault is also effectively tool-agnostic: you can deploy it on the same database and with the same software you currently use – avoiding expensive re-training. Similarly, where you are maintaining a traditional data warehouse and a data lake, the methodology remains the same - meaning that data is easily ratified and shared across both.

In addition to increased load and change speed, the accuracy of the data is also significantly improved. Data Vault 2.0 delivers full auditability by protecting the integrity and origin of the data. Whilst traditional methods only present a “single version of the truth,” cleansing or removing what does not fit with predefined business rules; a Data Vault can offer all the data, all the time. This provides improved accuracy and data integrity, allowing an auditor to trace values back to the source.

DV2.0 System – Complete Package

A system or Business Intelligence comprised of...

Implementation Methodology • Consistent • Repeatable • Pattern Based Architecture • Multi-Tier • Scalable • Supports NoSQL Model • Flexible • Scalable • Hub & Spoke

Methodology

Data Vault 2.0 offers both fast deployment times and unmatched success rates delivered through a consistent, repeatable and pattern based methodology that goes all the way down to the implementation level. This means that there are standards that govern the entire process enabling; CMMI Level 5 compliance (which relies also on people’s ability to execute), TQM (overall for BI), Six Sigma (for project based build outs), and Agile for rapid delivery cycles.

Architecture

The Data Vault Architecture offers a unique solution to business and technical problems alike. It is focused squarely at the data integration efforts across the enterprise and is built from solid foundational concepts.

The DV 2.0 architecture includes new things like NoSQL and Hybrid solutions that bring big data capabilities to the table. DV 2.0 is specifically designed for high volume, high variety and high velocity workloads, enabling them to be seamlessly integrated with your existing relational systems.

Data Vault 2.0 is designed to deal with today’s big data challenges, providing a foundational level-build that will be successful for years to come.

Model

The DV 2.0 Model offers the ability to adapt quickly, model the business accurately, and scale with the business needs – aligning both IT and the business to meet the goals of the corporation.

The Data Vault is a detail-oriented, history tracking, and uniquely linked set of normalised tables that support one or more functional areas of business. It is a hybrid approach encompassing the best of breed between 3rd normal form (3NF) and star schema. The design is flexible, scalable, consistent and adaptable to the needs of the enterprise.

Data Warehousing that’s Predictable, Repeatable and Scalable

 

For Government Departments and Policy Makers, the challenge of Big Data is significant. The multitude of data sources, increasing complexities, information diversity; coupled with regulatory and compliance demands create a complex set of challenges.

Data Vault 2.0 was born out of necessity for the US Federal Government to meet these challenges. It was designed specifically to meet the needs of CMMI Level 5, Six Sigma, TQM, and Lean Initiatives. It has been put to use for the National Security Agency, the US Department of Defence, US Naval Intelligence and many more.

When dealing with complex regulatory and compliance issues, accuracy is everything. Data Vault 2.0’s unique architecture delivers full auditability by protecting the integrity and origin of the data. Whilst traditional methods only present a “single version of the truth,” cleansing or removing what does not fit with predefined business rules; a Data Vault can offer all the data, all the time. This provides improved accuracy and data integrity, allowing an auditor to trace values back to the source.

Data auditability was an extremely important factor for QSuper, Australia’s largest Super Fund. Click here to see Dan Linstedt discussing how the introduction of SuperStream increased regulatory reporting requirements, leading QSuper to innovate away from the traditional approach to data warehousing and reporting.

For most departments, the ability to avoid becoming siloed is also critical. Sharing and managing data across multiple business units, departments or government entities can bring significant benefits. This is something that The Dutch Tax Authority and the Central Bureau of Statistics realised. Click here to see Dan explain how these two government agencies in the Netherlands broke down the silos and realised the ability to share data across their organisations.

In a time of shrinking budgets, Data Vault 2.0 also offers policy makers significantly enhanced Total Cost of Ownership. Because of the simplified model, automatic code generation and abstracted business rules, loading new data into a Data Vault is significantly less labour intensive. The speed of load, combined with the ease at which new reports can be created (typically around half the time) delivers a solid improvement in TCO.

Do you want to fix these problems, once and for all, using technology that really works? Then Data Vault 2.0 is almost certainly the answer. DV 2.0 provides significantly increased data accuracy, in a faster and more agile way, that is also less expensive for your organisation to build and maintain.

Data Warehousing that’s Predictable, Repeatable and Scalable

 

Even relatively modest sized finance departments are struggling to house, understand and leverage the data they are working with. Poor data-driven decision making can have direct financial ramifications on your business.

Are you able to balance across multiple business units with complete confidence to deliver reporting and forecasting that is accurate to 1/10th of 1%? Here is Dan Linstedt, the inventor of Data Vault 2.0 explaining how Commonwealth Bank achieved this.

A lack of confidence in your data creates a hidden, yet hard cost for your department when dealing with outdated, missing, duplicate or non-conforming data. This cost can be measured in terms of both frustration and man-hours: swallowing resources, creating layers of bureaucracy, unnecessary process and slowing your departments effectiveness.

A business’ needs are always shifting, and your data needs to be agile to keep up. How often are you required to find new data, demanding new reports or analysis? Working with IT can mean 12-week lead-times to incorporate new data which, for most finance departments, is simply unrealistic. This situation often leads to scrambling around for ad hoc data extracts and custom data processing which exacerbates the problem, spawning multiple versions of data which exist in multiple locations.

What is worse is that even when you do manage to generate the report that has been requested, there may still be an underlying distrust in the data that it is built upon. This often results in the reports that you have worked so hard to create being discounted or ignored, making producing them an exercise in futility.

Do you want to fix these problems once and for all, using technology that really works? Then Data Vault 2.0 is almost certainly the answer.

Regain control, and embrace the Data-Driven Era with DV 2.0.

Data Warehousing that’s Predictable, Repeatable and Scalable

 

As Philip E. Tetlock's famous study points out, when it comes to intuition, the results are about as accurate as flipping a coin. For the modern marketer seeking to identify, engage and delight their customer base, data is the life blood of their operation and going off gut feeling is no longer good enough.

With the explosion in Big Data, the modern marketing department now has access to more data than ever before. Yet traditional IT systems struggle to keep pace with the agile needs of a marketing department. This often leads to marketing working around IT, rather than with them, which is time consuming and generally gleans poor results. Building agility into your foundational data warehouse removes this problem, giving you the ability to unlock the hidden value of your data.

Data accuracy is a critical consideration for the modern marketer. Only by understanding all the interactions and inputs of any given customer, across multiple systems and Business Units, can you build a true picture of them and their needs. On the other side of the coin, mishandling customer data or providing poorly targeted or, worse still, inappropriate offerings can be extremely damaging to your brand.

Whilst it is possible to apply B.I. tools over existing data sets, continuing to build solutions, layering on tools, and making decisions on bad data is just building a house of cards that will eventually come tumbling down.

To create a successful data-driven marketing strategy that can deliver both incremental revenue and strategic value, you must start at the foundational level. If you get this right, you can start to build effective data-driven marketing strategies that will not only better serve the needs of your department, but deliver both differentiation and competitive advantage for your organisation.

Do you want to fix these problems once and for all, using technology that really works? Then Data Vault 2.0 is almost certainly the answer. DV 2.0 provides significantly increased data accuracy, in a faster and more agile way, that is also less expensive for your organisation to build and maintain.

It is time to step up and embrace the Data-Driven Marketing Era with DV 2.0.