3.5 Scope of Problems

3.5 Scope of Problems

By the time a report has been generated from a data warehouse, there have been a lot of opportunities for the data to go wrong. The errors just accumulate from initial data creation through decay, data movement, and use. No wonder so many data decision support systems are judged failures.

Some practitioners take comfort in believing that data accuracy problems are greater in legacy systems than they are in systems built more recently, systems on a relational base, or systems implemented through a packaged application. The truth is that there are many opportunities to create problems in all of these.

Relational systems are not immune to errors. This is particularly true of relational systems built in the 1980s. Much of the current protection capability of relational systems was introduced gradually throughout the 1980s. This included date/time data types, triggers, procedures, and referential constraints. Many of the older systems do not use these capabilities and thus leave themselves open to inaccurate data.

Packaged applications do not protect against bad data. They provide a framework for collecting and storing data, but only the using company generates and is responsible for the data. The packaged application cannot ensure that all data is collected, that all values are accurate, or that the fields are being used as intended. Using companies often make local customization decisions in order to force the packaged application to fit their way of doing business. This can lead to problems in extracting, moving, and interpreting data.



Data Quality(c) The Accuracy Dimension
Data Quality: The Accuracy Dimension (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
ISBN: 1558608915
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 133
Authors: Jack E. Olson

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