A temporal study of data sources to load a corporate data warehouse

Abstract

The input data of the corporate data warehouse is provided by the data sources, that are integrated. In the temporal database research area, a bitemporal database is a database supporting valid time and transaction time. Valid time is the time when the fact is true in the modeled reality, while transaction time is the time when the fact is stored in the database. Defining a data warehouse as a bitemporal database containing integrated and subject-oriented data in support of the decision making process, transaction time in the data warehouse can always be obtained, because it is internal to a given storage system. When an event is loaded into the data warehouse, its valid time is transformed into a bitemporal element, adding transaction time, generated by the database management system of the data warehouse. However, depending on whether the data sources manage transaction time and valid time or not, we could obtain the valid time for the data warehouse or not. The aim of this paper is to present a temporal study of the different kinds of data sources to load a corporate data warehouse, using a bitemporal storage structure. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.