A data mart is the access layer of the data warehouse environment that is used to get data out to the users. The data mart is a subset of the data warehouse that is usually oriented to a specific business line or team. In some deployments, each department or business unit is considered the owner of its data mart including all the hardware, software and data. This enables each department to use, manipulate and develop their data any way they see fit; without altering information inside other data marts or the data warehouse. In other deployments where conformed dimensions are used, this business unit ownership will not hold true for shared dimensions like customer, product, etc.
The related term spreadmart describes the situation that occurs when one or more business analysts develop a system of linked spreadsheets to perform a business analysis, then grow it to a size and degree of complexity that makes it nearly impossible to maintain.
The primary use for a data mart is business intelligence (BI) applications. BI is used to gather, store, access and analyze data. The data mart can be used by smaller businesses to utilize the data they have accumulated. A data mart can be less expensive than implementing a data warehouse, thus making it more cost effective for the small business. A data mart can also be set up in much less time than a data warehouse, being able to be set up in less than 90 days. Since most small businesses only have use for a small number of BI applications, the low cost and quick set up of the data mart makes it a suitable method for storing data.
Read more about Data Mart: Design Schemas, Reasons For Creating A Data Mart, Dependent Data Mart
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