Implementation of Data Mart

Prerequisite – Data Marts
In order to implement data mart, we need to follow some certain steps. It includes designing of physical and logical structure, loading of data into data mart, accessing the data from it for managing data marts. Each and every step plays an important role in implementation of a successful data mart.

Here are the steps for implementing data mart:

Designing

Building

Populating

Accessing and Managing

Here is detailed explanation of above steps:

1. Designing
   Designing is the first step in implementing data mart. Since, data mart stores data related to a particular topic, so this step includes identification of a subject or a topic related to which data mart will store data. Also it includes the sources to gather the information related to the subject and then designing logical and physical structures of data mart.

   Steps To Follow:

   • Identification of subject.
   • Source to gather the information.
   • Designing the logical and physical structures.

   ER diagrams are used to design the overall structure and the functioning of data mart.
   

2. Building
   Building is the second phase in implementing data mart. It includes building physical and logical structure of data mart which is designed in the first step.
   Physical Structure means constructing database so that data can be easily accessed from it and logical structure means outer schema.

   Steps to Follow:

   • Building the physical database which is designed in the first phase.

   In order to design database, RDBMS software is required. It helps in implementing the tables and views related to the subject.
   

3. Populating
   Populating phase includes putting data into the data mart. Before putting data into data warehouse, there is a need to extract the data from the sources, to clean it and convert it into the correct format and then put the corrected data into the data mart. These steps are needed to perform so that data stored in the data mart is appropriate.

   Steps To Follow while Populating include:

   • Extracting data from external sources.
   • Cleaning of extracted data by converting it into correct format.
   • Loading correct data into data mart.

   ETL tool is used in extracting, transforming and loading data from sources into data mart.
   

4. Accessing
   Now the data mart is ready with its data. This is the time to access data from it by making requests related to query occurred. We can access data from data mart either through command line or GUI platform. Making query through GUI based platform is user friendly and used by many organisations comparatively.

   Steps to Follow while Accessing includes:

   • Set up a layer to convert database structures into business terms so that non-technical persons can access data from data mart easily.
   • Set up database structures.
   • Maintain interface.

   GUI is needed which easily take requests of user and display germane results.
   

5. Managing
   This is the last step in implementing data mart. It includes all the management task to manage data mart for long term use.

   Managing includes the following:

   • Maintaining recovery of data in case system fails.
   • Adding and deleting data into data mart
   • Procedure to access data from data mart should be optimized for enhanced performance.