Risks of Not Performing Step 8

Tables are not flat files in a database, and they are not just a different way to casually store some data. Relational DBMS engines are based on intricate internal sets of rules. These rules must be understood and followed. Organizations hire database administrators to do just that. However, too often programmers who are not intimately familiar with the internal workings of their DBMS engines are allowed to design the BI target databases, and they design them poorly. This could have a catastrophic effect on performance. In fact, it could kill the BI application, if not the entire BI decision-support initiative.