Business Intelligence, 3e (Sharda/Delen/Turban)
Chapter 2 Data Warehousing
1) In the Isle of Capri case, the only capability added by the new software was increased
processing speed of processing reports.
2) The “islands of data” problem in the 1980s describes the phenomenon of unconnected data
being stored in numerous locations within an organization.
3) Subject oriented databases for data warehousing are organized by detailed subjects such as
disk drives, computers, and networks.
4) Data warehouses are subsets of data marts.
5) One way an operational data store differs from a data warehouse is the recency of their data.
6) Organizations seldom devote a lot of effort to creating metadata because it is not important for
the effective use of data warehouses.
7) Without middleware, different BI programs cannot easily connect to the data warehouse.
8) Two-tier data warehouse/BI infrastructures offer organizations more flexibility but cost more
than three-tier ones.
9) Moving the data into a data warehouse is usually the easiest part of its creation.
10) The hub-and-spoke data warehouse model uses a centralized warehouse feeding dependent
data marts.
11) Because of performance and data quality issues, most experts agree that the federated
architecture should supplement data warehouses, not replace them.
12) Bill Inmon advocates the data mart bus architecture whereas Ralph Kimball promotes the
hub-and-spoke architecture, a data mart bus architecture with conformed dimensions.
13) The ETL process in data warehousing usually takes up a small portion of the time in a data-
centric project.
14) In the Starwood Hotels case, up-to-date data and faster reporting helped hotel managers
better manage their occupancy rates.
15) Large companies, especially those with revenue upwards of $500 million consistently reap
substantial cost savings through the use of hosted data warehouses.
16) OLTP systems are designed to handle ad hoc analysis and complex queries that deal with
many data items.
17) The data warehousing maturity model consists of six stages: prenatal, infant, child, teenager,
adult, and sage.
18) A well-designed data warehouse means that user requirements do not have to change as
business needs change.
19) Data warehouse administrators (DWAs) do not need strong business insight since they only
handle the technical aspect of the infrastructure.
20) Because the recession has raised interest in low-cost open source software, it is now set to
replace traditional enterprise software.
21) The “single version of the truth” embodied in a data warehouse such as Capri Casinos’ means
all of the following EXCEPT
A) decision makers get to see the same results to queries.
B) decision makers have the same data available to support their decisions.
C) decision makers get to use more dependable data for their decisions.
D) decision makers have unfettered access to all data in the warehouse.
22) Operational or transaction databases are product oriented, handling transactions that update
the database. In contrast, data warehouses are
A) subject-oriented and nonvolatile.
B) product-oriented and nonvolatile.
C) product-oriented and volatile.
D) subject-oriented and volatile.
23) Which kind of data warehouse is created separately from the enterprise data warehouse by a
department and not reliant on it for updates?
A) sectional data mart
B) public data mart
C) independent data mart
D) volatile data mart
24) All of the following statements about metadata are true EXCEPT
A) metadata gives context to reported data.
B) there may be ethical issues involved in the creation of metadata.
C) metadata helps to describe the meaning and structure of data.
D) for most organizations, data warehouse metadata are an unnecessary expense.
25) A Web client that connects to a Web server, which is in turn connected to a BI application
server, is reflective of a
A) one tier architecture.
B) two tier architecture.
C) three tier architecture.
D) four tier architecture.
26) Which of the following BEST enables a data warehouse to handle complex queries and scale
up to handle many more requests?
A) use of the web by users as a front-end
B) parallel processing
C) Microsoft Windows
D) a larger IT staff
27) Which data warehouse architecture uses metadata from existing data warehouses to create a
hybrid logical data warehouse comprised of data from the other warehouses?
A) independent data marts architecture
B) centralized data warehouse architecture
C) hub-and-spoke data warehouse architecture
D) federated architecture
28) Which data warehouse architecture uses a normalized relational warehouse that feeds
multiple data marts?
A) independent data marts architecture
B) centralized data warehouse architecture
C) hub-and-spoke data warehouse architecture
D) federated architecture
29) Which approach to data warehouse integration focuses more on sharing process functionality
than data across systems?
A) extraction, transformation, and load
B) enterprise application integration
C) enterprise information integration
D) enterprise function integration
30) In which stage of extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) into a data warehouse are data
aggregated?
A) transformation
B) extraction
C) load
D) cleanse
31) In which stage of extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) into a data warehouse are
anomalies detected and corrected?
A) transformation
B) extraction
C) load
D) cleanse
32) Data warehouses provide direct and indirect benefits to using organizations. Which of the
following is an indirect benefit of data warehouses?
A) better and more timely information
B) extensive new analyses performed by users
C) simplified access to data
D) improved customer service
33) All of the following are benefits of hosted data warehouses EXCEPT
A) smaller upfront investment.
B) better quality hardware.
C) greater control of data.
D) frees up in-house systems.
34) When representing data in a data warehouse, using several dimension tables that are each
connected only to a fact table means you are using which warehouse structure?
A) star schema
B) snowflake schema
C) relational schema
D) dimensional schema
35) When querying a dimensional database, a user went from summarized data to its underlying
details. The function that served this purpose is
A) dice.
B) slice.
C) roll-up.
D) drill down.
36) Which of the following online analytical processing (OLAP) technologies does NOT require
the precomputation and storage of information?
A) MOLAP
B) ROLAP
C) HOLAP
D) SQL
37) Active data warehousing can be used to support the highest level of decision making
sophistication and power. The major feature that enables this in relation to handling the data is
A) country of (data) origin.
B) nature of the data.
C) speed of data transfer.
D) source of the data.
38) Which of the following statements is more descriptive of active data warehouses in contrast
with traditional data warehouses?
A) strategic decisions whose impacts are hard to measure
B) detailed data available for strategic use only
C) large numbers of users, including operational staffs
D) restrictive reporting with daily and weekly data currency
39) How does the use of cloud computing affect the scalability of a data warehouse?
A) Cloud computing vendors bring as much hardware as needed to users’ offices.
B) Hardware resources are dynamically allocated as use increases.
C) Cloud vendors are mostly based overseas where the cost of labor is low.
D) Cloud computing has little effect on a data warehouse’s scalability.
40) All of the following are true about in-database processing technology EXCEPT
A) it pushes the algorithms to where the data is.
B) it makes the response to queries much faster than conventional databases.
C) it is often used for apps like credit card fraud detection and investment risk management.
D) it is the same as in-memory storage technology.
41) With ________ data flows, managers can view the current state of their businesses and
quickly identify problems.
42) In ________ oriented data warehousing, operational databases are tuned to handle
transactions that update the database.
43) The three main types of data warehouses are data marts, operational ________, and
enterprise data warehouses.
44) ________ describe the structure and meaning of the data, contributing to their effective use.
45) Most data warehouses are built using ________ database management systems to control and
manage the data.
46) A(n) ________ architecture is used to build a scalable and maintainable infrastructure that
includes a centralized data warehouse and several dependent data marts.
47) The ________ data warehouse architecture involves integrating disparate systems and
analytical resources from multiple sources to meet changing needs or business conditions.
48) Data ________ comprises data access, data federation, and change capture.
49) ________ is a mechanism that integrates application functionality and shares functionality
(rather than data) across systems, thereby enabling flexibility and reuse.
50) ________ is a mechanism for pulling data from source systems to satisfy a request for
information. It is an evolving tool space that promises real-time data integration from a variety of
sources, such as relational databases, Web services, and multidimensional databases.
51) Performing extensive ________ to move data to the data warehouse may be a sign of poorly
managed data and a fundamental lack of a coherent data management strategy.
52) The ________ Model, also known as the EDW approach, emphasizes top-down
development, employing established database development methodologies and tools, such as
entity-relationship diagrams (ERD), and an adjustment of the spiral development approach.
53) The ________ Model, also known as the data mart approach, is a “plan big, build small”
approach. A data mart is a subject-oriented or department-oriented data warehouse. It is a scaled-
down version of a data warehouse that focuses on the requests of a specific department, such as
marketing or sales.
54) ________ modeling is a retrieval-based system that supports high-volume query access.
55) Online ________ is arguably the most commonly used data analysis technique in data
warehouses.
56) Online ________ is a term used for a transaction system that is primarily responsible for
capturing and storing data related to day-to-day business functions such as ERP, CRM, SCM,
and point of sale.
57) In the Michigan State Agencies case, the approach used was a(n) ________ one, instead of
developing separate BI/DW platforms for each business area or state agency.
58) The role responsible for successful administration and management of a data warehouse is
the ________, who should be familiar with high-performance software, hardware, and
networking technologies, and also possesses solid business insight.
59) ________, or “The Extended ASP Model,” is a creative way of deploying information
system applications where the provider licenses its applications to customers for use as a service
on demand (usually over the Internet)
60) ________ (also called in-database analytics) refers to the integration of the algorithmic
extent of data analytics into data warehouse.
61) What is the definition of a data warehouse (DW) in simple terms?
62) A common way of introducing data warehousing is to refer to its fundamental characteristics.
Describe three characteristics of data warehousing.
63) What is the definition of a data mart?
64) Mehra (2005) indicated that few organizations really understand metadata, and fewer
understand how to design and implement a metadata strategy. How would you describe
metadata?
65) According to Kassam (2002), business metadata comprise information that increases our
understanding of traditional (i.e., structured) data. What is the primary purpose of metadata?
66) In the MultiCare case, how was data warehousing able to reduce septicemia mortality rates in
MultiCare hospitals?
67) Briefly describe four major components of the data warehousing process.
68) There are several basic information system architectures that can be used for data
warehousing. What are they?
69) More data, coming in faster and requiring immediate conversion into decisions, means that
organizations are confronting the need for real-time data warehousing (RDW). How would you
define real-time data warehousing?
70) Mention briefly some of the recently popularized concepts and technologies that will play a
significant role in defining the future of data warehousing.