I've always like to think of Data Warehouse environments as fast moving and agile, driving value for the business through rapid delivery of important new information, but it seems that this is often not so.  In recent months I have been told of organisations where it takes three months to deliver new data feeds to the warehouse. 

Personally this feels very wrong and I'd really like to understand how prevalent this is.  I'm sure that there are occasions when three months is correct, perhaps for extremely complex feeds, but on a regular basis?

It also begs the question as to whether overlong "time to market" is one of the causes of organisations having too many uncontrolled data marts or huge analytic environments full of ETL  code.    After all how much competitive advantage can be gained from data that is so long overdue?  Is it any surprise therefore that alternatives to the warehouse are being sought out?

It is absolutely correct that the business shouldn't accept these levels of delay, but short term workarounds to the problem will not help anyone in the long term.  Over time the additional complexity will simply confuse the data and reporting landscape.  After all it's hard to get a single version of the truth, when everyone has their own personal favourite!

So what is the answer?  I hate to oversimplify, but the answer lies both with IT and the business.  I know it's an old chestnut, but it's still the truth.

Both parties need to commit to reducing the time to delivery, such that the warehouse can be agile and responsive.  IT should examine processes, methodologies, capability, design and SLAs, and business should support and participate in initiatives to ensure raised levels of understanding and governance relating to business rules, data and metadata. 

Technology can also help, and in some instances I believe that alternatives to the warehouse are the right option, but I'm keeping my powder dry on this one for this blog at least!  Another blog for another day I'm afraid, so stay tuned in the coming weeks and I'll elaborate in one of my future posts.