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Q. What is Architecture?
"Often, architecture and infrastructure are used interchangeably. There’s a subtle difference.
Infrastructure consists of applications, hardware, and software. Architecture, on the other hand,
refers to the overlying principles and processes that lead the organization’s infrastructure
deployment.
Data architecture is "the blueprint of the data within your company." It "includes things like
enterprisewide data models, the meta-data catalog, and notions of data ownership." Data
infrastructure, on the other hand, covers the physical data structures and data transport
mechanisms.
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) typically divides the world into "point-to-point" or
"hub-and-spoke".
Organizations often have developed piecemail integrations incrementally from one application
to another, that is, so-called "point-to-point" application integrations. These incremental
integrations span a variety of tools, and may be occasionally conflicting, since the integrations
and data aren't viewed as a coherent, shared resource.
Suppose the company acquires a new business. The new business is just one more spoke on
the company hub. Data from the new business should flow (once the spoke is implemented)
into the hub and be published as necessary through the enterprise. For example, sales data
from the new business should flow into the existing company sales datamart.
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Data warehouse design & Architecture - General FAQ
ETL architecture connects three areas: source, staging, and target. Sources are typically one
or more OLTP systems. Staging is a common holding and work area. Targets are typically a
data warehouse or mart.
"The source to stage component is intended to focus the efforts of reading the source data
(sourcing) and replicating the data to the staging area."
"The stage to warehouse component focuses the effort of standardizing and centralizing the
data from the source systems into a single view of the organization’s information. This
centralized target can be a data warehouse, data mart, operational data store, customer list
store, reporting database or any other reporting/data environment."
The Best Practice is "to consolidate the business rules into the stage to warehouse ETL
component". This Best Practice can tie ETL architecture to EAI architecture.
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