Data warehouse vs. common transactional database: which one harms your company?

Data warehouses (DW) and common transactional databases start from the same principle: storing information. But while one harms your company, the other benefits.

Do you know which one?

Read on to discover the key differences between a data warehouse and a typical transactional database and how these two technologies affect your business .

Good reading! 🚀

What is data warehousing?

DW is a powerful data storage device that has the enormous advantage of housing information of different types and sources .

It is used as a large database, developed and optimized for analytical queries . This is because it concentrates structured data inside, which facilitates the analysis process.

The power of the data warehouse is such that its functionalities are generally directed towards big data analytics services due to its processing speed.

Below, check out other functions that your company can benefit from through a DW :

1. consultation and reports | tells you everything that has happened so far.
2. business analysis (OLAP) | informs the reason for some events.
3. data mining | indicates what may happen and other relevant information.
4. dashboards and scorecards | clarifies the present and monitors a company's performance, in accordance with business strategies.

In this way, the data warehouse transforms your data into tangible information for decision making.

What is a common transactional database?

The common transactional database is characterized by row storage , that is, instead of storing information in columns, it is queued within the database.

This type of storage is useful when you need to find all the information about the customer in the user table, as you can only collect the data you need.

However, there are cases where the common transactional database may not be as useful. For example, when it is necessary to count the number of customers living in a specific zip code. To do this, you need to load not only the zip code lines, but also the name, address and user ID lines .

Because it is a technology that has been around for decades, the common transactional database is well-known, accessible and ubiquitous. But it can't handle analytical queries because this type of storage is designed to process transactions.

Therefore, using the common transactional database can be a great starting point, but the limitations will leave you needing alternative solutions.

Data warehouse vs transactional database: which is better?

Data warehouses (DW) and common transactional databases essentially start from the same principle: storing information.

If your concern is based on the results that can be achieved through data analysis , then adopting DW in your processes is the best choice for your company.

While the common transactional database depends on management systems such as the DBMS, the data warehouse works more autonomously in this sense.

It is very important to remember, however, that a DW collects information from different sources and that one of these sources can be the transactional database.

Therefore, there is nothing to prevent the two storage options in your company from working in a complementary way.

Store your data in the best way with Indicium

Now that you know that a data warehouse added to a common transactional database results in an explosive combination in terms of analytics, it's time to apply this to your company.

Our data science team has the most qualified workforce to:

• implement a data warehouse
• offer the best use of the database
• predict your company’s results through analytics

How are you?

Contact us right now and take the first step towards taking your company off the ground! 🚀