DW Architect

DW Architect is an integrated rapid Design, Code Generation, Code Deployment Platform for Data Warehouses and ETL. Using our design environment, developers import and create Meta Data about Source Systems, Data Warehouse schema and ETL processes. Using this Meta Data ‘DW Architect’ generates the necessary code using code generation templates. The code is then deployed to test or production servers using our deployment platform. Once deployed, the ETL Batch process is executed, based on a schedule, using our ETL Batch execution platform. ‘DW Architect’ consists of: 

• A development environment integrated with Visual Studio.
• A Management Console.
• A Server platform to execute and manage ETL batches.

Design

Our design environment allows you to import and create Meta Data about your Source Systems, Data Warehouse design and ETL processes. Using this Meta Data ‘DW Architect’ uses customizable code generation templates, to generate the code. ‘DW Architect’ is integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio and instantly familiar to developers. Visual Studio shell is free to download, and is installed by default with Microsoft SQL Server Client tools. Both Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 are supported. Design your Data Warehouse alongside your other Business Intelligence projects for Analysis Services and Reporting Services.

Design Staging and Extract ETL

Quickly define Staging tables and Extract processes by connecting to and importing table and column Meta Data from your source systems. Many different connection sources are supported. Column mapping between source and staging tables can defined for Extract code generation. Supports complex query sources, expressions, custom Meta data and derived table creation for more complex Extract requirements.

Design Dimensions and Transformation ETL

DW Architect allows you to design dimensions. Define dimension business keys and attributes including attribute descriptions, data types, slowly changing types, parent settings etc. Define custom surrogate key data types and names, and custom meta data for more complex design requirements.
Define Transform and Load Meta Data with Staging to Dimension attribute mapping, ETL pattern, Matching criteria, Filters, Expressions etc.

Design Facts and Transformation ETL

DW Architect allows you to design fact tables and their dimensionality in the data warehouse. Define measures, their data type and description. Associate the Fact with the dimensions defined in the project. DW Architect caters for Role play names, Many to Many dimensions and conforming dimensions from other Data Marts. Define Transform and Load Meta Data with Staging to Measure mapping, Dimension lookups, ETL patterns, Matching criteria, Filters, Expressions etc.

Generate

‘DW Architect’ includes a code generation platform to generate the required code from Meta Data defined in the Design Environment. The platform includes a user interface, engines and templates to generate the entire suite of Data Warehouse and ETL code artefacts required to implement your data warehouse. The code can be generated through the management console or by command line.
The code generation platform is extensible allowing you to develop your own templates, and generation engine providers.

Included are templates and engines to generate:

• Databases.
• Staging Tables and Views DDL.
• Data Warehouse Tables and Views DDL.
• Extract, Transform and Conform procedures.
• Table Management procedures.
• Seed Data.
• Data Dictionary.

Included Engines are:

• XSLT generation Engine. Create XSLT templates to generate code from ‘DW Architect’ Meta Data.

One of the great advantages of code generation is the reduction in Bug fixing and Testing requirements.

Non destructive DDL Generation

It is important that data is not destroyed, when the Data Warehouse schema is updated. Existing schema synchronisation tools implement a column name change as a drop and create column pair destroying data in the existing column as they do so. DW Architect advanced DDL generation methods preserves data, recognizes name changes, and generates scripts which test the existing state of your data warehouse, creating and modifies tables and columns as required.

Deploy

“DW Architect’ makes code deployment simple. ‘DW Architect’ includes a code deployment platform to deploy generated code to local, test and production environments. The platform includes a user interface and deployment providers to deploy code to various target servers. The code can be deployed via the management console or by command line.

The code generation platform is extensible allowing you to develop your own deployment providers to target custom server environments.

A configuration file is created for each target environment. Within the configuration file connection strings and other variables ( as required) are defined for the environment. The deployment process utilizes this configuration file and deployment Providers to deploy the code to the target environment, setting variable as required.

‘DW Architect’ includes an SQL Deployment Provider to deploy code to a Microsoft SQL Server. 

DW Batch Manager

‘DW Batch Manager’ includes a server side Batch Execution platform which executes and manages ETL batches. Code generated by the supplied generation templates is designed to be executed by this platform.

‘DW Batch Manager’ orchestrates ETL task on your existing BI/Database platform, scheduling tasks in the correct order, and managing status updates and failures. The Batch execution framework uses a Meta Data database to record Batch progress.

The Batch execution component will

• Employs dynamic Server utilization.

• Handle Batch failure.

• Dynamic batch orchestration.

• Gather Batch statistics.

• Handle multiple batch schedules i.e. Daily, Weekly, Monthly.

The batch management platform is extensible. Users can create their own phase and task execution providers.