ITdevil

 Profile Answers by ITdevil 

• May 21st, 2009

 

Staging area is also called 'Operational Data Store'™ (ODS). It is a data holding place where the data which is extracted from all the data sources are stored. From the Staging area, data is loaded to the data warehouse. Data cleansing takes place in this stage.

sixto.dsilva

 Profile Answers by sixto.dsilva Questions by sixto.dsilva

• Aug 19th, 2009

 

Staging and Operational Data Store
What are Staging and Operational Data Stores and what is their difference?
An operational data store (or "ODS") is a database designed to integrate data from multiple sources to make analysis and reporting easier.

Staging areas are used in databases as a place to store temporary data for import. By filling this staging tables with import data you can check and alter this data before committing it to the final production datatables.

I think previous answers are perfectly valid

Why does one need staging and why does one need ODS?

Check above answer.

What will happen if they are not there?
Answer lies above.

srilu1234

 Profile Answers by srilu1234 

• Jan 19th, 2010

 

Stagining and operational data store are different databases.
It can be one database aswell to reduce the cost to maitain two databases.
Staging is the place where cleansing is done and Operational Store is the one where you apply some methos on the data.
Some times staging and operational Data Store could be one to save the costs incured in masintaing huge databases.

jryan999

 Profile Answers by jryan999 Questions by jryan999

• Feb 3rd, 2010

 

An Operational Data Store (ODS) is a repository of active "operational" data.  It's typically used to hold data for a short period (eg. Days or weeks at most), to help the business answer operational questions (eg. "How many outstanding orders are over 24 hour old and need chasing up")

This may be compared to the warehouse which holds data for longer periods (eg. historically going back months or years) to help "analysis" of the data to answer questions like "What's the month on month growth of sales by product type and geographic sales region".

The key difference is the purpose.  An ODS supports the operation of the business, the warehouse the longer term analysis.  

It's quite possible that an organisation will have an ODS, and no warehouse.  Often the ODS is later used as one if the key sources of data for the warehouse.  However, it's equally (perhaps more) common, to find a warehouse being fed directly from multiple source systems, and operational reporting being produced directly on the source systems.

Whereas both the ODS and Warehouse present data to End Users, the staging area is NEVER used to report.  It's simply a collection of files, datatabase tables and temporary store used to re-structure, clean and organise the data.  The data is "staged" from the Source systems prior to being loaded into the Warehouse - or even (in some cases) the ODS.

Therefore an organisation can have an ODS and/or  Data Warehouse, but if it has a Data Warehouse, it will almost certainly have a Staging Area.