Data engineering and IT
Data warehouse
- Data engineering and IT
Definition
A central store of cleaned, structured data brought together from many source systems and organised for reporting and analysis.
Example
ILLUSTRATION based on Raket Parts B.V. data. Raket records data in 21 source systems (source_systems table), such as order, finance and HR systems. A data warehouse would load the order lines, invoices and ledger from those systems each night into one model, so finance and sales report the same revenue figure.
Raket Parts B.V. is a fictional company created for Insyt.
See how it works
- Operational source systems
- Load, clean and integrate
- Analytical warehouse tables
- Reports and analysis
Check your understanding
Common mistake: A data warehouse is primarily for analysis, not usually entering daily transactions.
What does a warehouse make easier?
Show explanation
Consistent analysis across multiple operational data sources and time periods.
For your role
Choose your role to see what this term means in your work.
Why it matters
It gives one trusted place for reporting instead of each team extracting and reconciling its own numbers.
Where it is used
Company reporting, analytics platforms and BI projects. Used by data engineers, BI developers, data architects and analysts.