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 Understanding the Data
Warehouse Architecture

i The Team Foundation reporting warehouse

is a traditional data warehouse consisting of
a relational database organized in an
approximate star schema and an OLAP
database built on top of the relational
database.
 

 Operational Stores
i þach tool or plug-
plug-in in Team Foundation
use a relational database in Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 to store the data used by the
tool in its day-
day-to-
to-day operations. This
relational database is often referred to as the
operational store.
 The operational stores for Team
Foundation include:
i (ommon structure databases
(TfsIntegration and TfsActivityLogging)
i Work item tracking databases
(TfsWorkItemTracking and
TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachments)
i Source control database (TfsVersion(ontrol)
i Team build database (TfsBuild)
i Team test database (TfsBuild)
 Warehouse Adapters
i The warehouse adapter copies and transforms those data
fields specified in either the basic warehouse configuration
or in the process template used at the time a new team
project is created. If you subsequently change the process
template to add or delete which data fields are written to
the data warehouse, these changes are detected the next
time the adapter is run. The adapter runs periodically with
a frequency set by the Run Interval Seconds property. The
default setting for the refresh frequency is 3,600 seconds,
so give careful consideration to the appropriate refresh
frequency for your installation.
 The Warehouse Relational
Database
iThe data in the warehouse are
stored in a set of tables organized
in a star schema. The central table
of the star schema is called the fact
table, and the related tables
represent dimensions. Dimensions
provide the means for
disaggregating reports into smaller
parts.
iA row in a fact table usually contains
either the value of a measure or a
foreign key reference to a dimension
table. The row represents the current
state of every item covered by the fact
table. For example, the Work Item fact
table has one row for every work item
stored in Work Item operational store.
 The Warehouse OLAP (ube

This allows the data cube to

aggregate the measures by day. The
warehouse OLAP data cube
aggregates both data from the
underlying star schema and time
data into multidimensional
structures.
 Report Designer Reports
i Report Designer is a component of Visual
Studio 2005 Team System that allows you to
define the Team Foundation data warehouse
as a data source and then design a report
interactively. Report Designer provides
tabbed windows for Data, Layout, and
Preview, and you can add datasets to
accommodate a new report design idea, or
adjust report layout based on preview
results.
 þxcel Reports

i Team Foundation integrates with Microsoft

Office þxcel to allow you to use Microsoft
Office þxcel to manage your project and
produce reports. Microsoft Office þxcel
provides pivot tables and charts for viewing
and analyzing multi-
multi-dimensional data. You
can bind these pivot tables directly to the
Team Foundation OLAP cube, so you can
interact with the data in the cube.
 Security
i Security forthe Team Foundation data
warehouse is defined at the database level,
while security for team reports is at the team
project level. The Team Foundation Server
administrator determines who has access to
the data in the data warehouse by granting
or revoking permissions on the user's
account.
 Data Warehouse Architecture
i A data warehouse architecture is primarily based
on the business processes of a business enterprise
taking into consideration the data consolidation
across the business enterprise with adequate
security, data modeling and organization, extent of
query requirements, meta data management and
application, warehouse staging area planning for
optimum bandwidth utilization and full technology
implementation.
 °
  

i Describes the number of stages and how
data is processed to convert raw /
transactional data into information for end
user usage.
i The data staging process includes three
main areas of concerns or sub-
sub- processes for
planning data warehouse architecture
namely ³þxtract´, ³Transform´ and ³Load´.

  


  

   


i ‰)þ

-
‰)þ

- Since data for the data warehouse can come
from different sources and may be of different types, the
plan to extract the data along with appropriate
compression and encryption techniques is an important
requirement for consideration.
i 2)
2)


 -- Transformation of data with appropriate
conversion, aggregation and cleaning besides de-de-
normalization and surrogate key management is also an
important process to be planned for building a data
warehouse.
i 3)
3)=

=
-- Steps to be considered to load data with
optimization by considering the multiple areas where the
data is targeted to be loaded and retrieved is also an
important part of the data warehouse architecture plan.
 Da a
   

In Data Model Architecture (also known
as Dimensional Data Model),
Model), there are 3 main data
modeling styles for enterprise warehouses:
i Ë
   - Top Down Architecture, Top
Down Implementation
i 




  - Bottom Up
Architecture, Bottom Up Implementation
i 

- Top Down Architecture, Bottom Up
Implementation



  

i Technology or Technical architecture
primary evolved from derivations from the
process architecture, meta data
management requirements based on
business rules and security levels
implementations and technology tool
specific evaluation.
 
a 
  

i is theprocess of translating the information
from one form to another in a step by step
sequence so as to manage the storage,
retrieval, modification and deletion of the
data in the data warehouse
 :

  

i Resource architecture is related to software
architecture in that many resources come
from software resources. Resources are
important because they help determine
performance. Workload is the other part of
the equation. If you have enough resources
to complete the workload in the right
amount of time, then performance will be
high. If there are not enough resources for
the workload, then performance will be low.
 Èa 

  

The ability to be compliant, consistent and
repeatable depends on how the data model is built
under the covers.
i There are 3 main data modeling styles for
enterprise warehouses:
i 3rd Normal Form - Top Down Architecture, Top
Down Implementation
i Federated Star Schemas - Bottom Up Architecture,
Bottom Up Implementation
i Data Vault - Top Down Architecture, Bottom Up
Implementation
i
  !   

° °