You need to create a data warehouse for your business reporting projects. How can you choose the best tools?

1 Define your objectives

Before you start looking for data warehousing tools, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your data warehouse. What are the main business questions you want to answer? What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to track? Who are the users and stakeholders of your data warehouse? How often do you need to update and access your data? How do you want to present and visualize your data? These are some of the questions that will help you define your objectives and scope for your data warehousing project.

2 Assess your data sources

Another important step is to assess your data sources and understand their characteristics. How many data sources do you have, and what are their types, formats, and volumes? How reliable, accurate, and consistent are your data sources? How complex and diverse are your data structures and schemas? How fast and frequent are your data changes and updates? These are some of the factors that will affect your data warehousing design and architecture, as well as the tools you need to extract, transform, and load (ETL) your data into your data warehouse.

3 Choose your data warehouse platform

The next step is to choose your data warehouse platform, which is the core component of your data warehousing project. The platform is where you store, organize, and query your data, using a database management system (DBMS). There are many options available for data warehouse platforms, ranging from traditional relational databases, such as Oracle, SQL Server, or MySQL, to modern cloud-based solutions, such as Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, or Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse. The choice of your data warehouse platform depends on several criteria, such as scalability, performance, security, cost, and compatibility with your data sources and tools.

4 Select your ETL tools

Once you have chosen your data warehouse platform, you need to select your ETL tools, which are the tools that enable you to extract data from your sources, transform it according to your business rules and requirements, and load it into your data warehouse. ETL tools can be divided into two categories: code-based and graphical. Code-based tools require you to write scripts or programs in languages such as SQL, Python, or Java, to perform ETL tasks. Graphical tools provide you with a user interface where you can drag and drop components, create workflows, and define transformations, without writing code. The choice of your ETL tools depends on your technical skills, data complexity, and customization needs.

5 Pick your reporting tools

The final step is to pick your reporting tools, which are the tools that enable you to access, analyze, and visualize your data, and create reports and dashboards for your business users and stakeholders. Reporting tools can be classified into two types: embedded and standalone. Embedded tools are integrated with your data warehouse platform, and allow you to query and visualize your data within the same environment. Standalone tools are separate applications that connect to your data warehouse platform, and offer more features and flexibility for data analysis and visualization. The choice of your reporting tools depends on your user preferences, data presentation, and collaboration needs.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?