14.4. INFORMATION DELIVERY
In all of our deliberations up to now, you have come to realize that there are four underlying methods for information delivery. You may be catering to the needs of any class of users. You may be constructing the information delivery system to satisfy the requirements of users with simple needs or those of power users. Still the principal means of delivery are the same.
Figure 14-6. How to provide information.
The first method is the delivery of information through reports, Of course, the formats and content could be sophisticated. Nevertheless, these are reports. The method of information delivery through reports is a carry-over from operational systems. You are familiar with hundreds of reports distributed from legacy operational systems. The next method is also a perpetuation of a technique from operational systems. In operational systems, the users are allowed to run queries in a very controlled setup. However, in a data warehouse, query processing is the most common method for information delivery. The types of queries run the gamut from simple to very complex. As you know, the main difference between queries in an operational system and in the data warehouse is the extra capabilities and openness in the warehouse environment.
The method of interactive analysis is something special in the data warehouse environment. Rarely are any users provided ...
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