Getting Started

To get started building your Data Warehouse, we suggest you first ensure that you have followed these simple steps:

  1. Familiarise yourself with DW Architect and DW Batch Manager through our ‘Example Project’. The ‘Example Project’ is a full, working example of a small end-to-end Data Warehouse, based on the Adventure Works database, which is distributed with the Community and Trial editions of DW Architect. You can find full instructions here: Example Project Instructions
  2. Complete the supplied Tutorial, which will take you step-by-step through building a Data Warehouse using the sample Adventure Works database. You can find the Tutorial here: DW Architect Tutorial

Overview

Design, Generate, Deploy and Run your Data Warehouse with DW Architect

DW Architect is a Data Warehouse Design, Generation, Deployment and Batch Execution tool. It is designed to work with your existing database platform, generating and deploying code to suit your target environment.

DW Architect adheres to the Kimball Star schema model, and many of the Kimball principles of Data Warehouse design.

Using DW Architect you can:

  • Design Dimensions
  • Design Fact Tables
  • Relate Facts to Dimensions, to model the star schema
  • Define Standard and Custom Management Columns
  • Define Custom Surrogate keys for tables where required
  • Design Many-to-Many relations (Bridge and Group) relationships
  • Generate the DDL to Create and Modify your physical database in line with the latest Data Warehouse design
  • Place the design under source control, and allow distribution to team members
  • Design the Extract process to extract data from Source systems into the Staging Database
  • Design Transform and Load processes for Transforming and Loading data, from the Staging Database into the Data Warehouse

DW Architect is installed with a Management Console Application. Using the Management Console you can:

  • Generate the DDL and ETL code required to create/update the Staging and Data Warehouse databases, and execute the Extract, Transform and Load processes
  • Deploy the code to a development or production environment

DW Batch Manager is a server-side Batch Execution platform which executes and manages ETL batches. Code generated by DW Architect 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.

For more information on these products, go to the Products section.