An operational data store (ODS) is used for operational reporting and as a source of data for the

enterprise data warehouse In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. DWs are central repositories of integra ...

(EDW). It is a complementary element to an EDW in a

decision support A decision support system (DSS) is an Information systems, information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations and planning levels of an organization (usually mid and hig ...

environment, and is used for operational reporting, controls, and decision making, as opposed to the EDW, which is used for tactical and strategic decision support. An ODS is a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

designed to integrate data from multiple sources for additional operations on the data, for reporting, controls and operational decision support. Unlike a production master data store, the data is not passed back to

operational system An operational system is a term used in data warehousing to refer to a system that is used to process the day-to-day transactions of an organization. These systems are designed in a manner that processing of day-to-day transactions is performed ef ...

s. It may be passed for further operations and to the

data warehouse In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. DWs are central repositories of integra ...

for reporting. An ODS should not be confused with an enterprise data hub (EDH). An operational data store will take transactional data from one or more production systems and loosely integrate it, in some respects it is still subject oriented, integrated and time variant, but without the volatility constraints. This integration is mainly achieved through the use of EDW structures and content. An ODS is not an intrinsic part of an EDH solution, although an EDH may be used to subsume some of the processing performed by an ODS and the EDW. An EDH is a broker of data. An ODS is certainly not. Because the

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...

originates from multiple sources, the integration often involves

cleaning Cleaning is the process of removing unwanted substances, such as dirt, infectious agents, and other impurities, from an object or environment. Cleaning is often performed for aesthetic, hygienic, functional, environmental, or safety purposes ...

, resolving redundancy and checking against

business rule A business rule defines or constrains some aspect of business. It may be expressed to specify an action to be taken when certain conditions are true or may be phrased so it can only resolve to either true or false. Business rules are intended to as ...

s for

integrity Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. In ...

. An ODS is usually designed to contain low-level or atomic (indivisible) data (such as transactions and prices) with limited history that is captured "real time" or "near real time" as opposed to the much greater volumes of data stored in the data warehouse generally on a less-frequent basis.

General use

The general purpose of an ODS is to integrate data from disparate source systems in a single structure, using

data integration Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of them. This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial (such as when two similar companies ...

technologies like

data virtualization Data virtualization is an approach to data management that allows an application to retrieve and manipulate data without requiring technical details about the data, such as how it is formatted at source, or where it is physically located, and can pr ...

data federation In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...

, or extract, transform, and load (ETL). This will allow operational access to the data for operational reporting, master data or reference data management. An ODS is not a replacement or substitute for a

or for a data hub but in turn could become a source.

External links

Bill Inmon Information Management article on the five classes of ODS
* Data management Data warehousing {{database-stub

General use

See also

Further reading

External links