Data warehousing

Abstract

I must be getting old! I was around and working in information technology (IT) back in the 1960s. Of course we did not call it IT then – it was still computing, still exciting and still specialized – needing banks of experts, like me. We went to work in our beards (well, not me personally, you understand!) and sandals and we delivered the goods – not quite what our clients wanted, perhaps a bit late and perhaps a bit over budget. Our clients were so amazed to get anything that nearly worked, they did not complain too much – we were protected by their ignorance of our alchemy and their low expectations. Slowly but surely, as they learned more about what the machines (with our help) could do, they started to see the possibilities for the future. One thing I remember clearly is that there was a kind of shared vision that by the 1970s, each organization would have an efficient and effective management information system based around the corporate database. This would be a central store of data which would be common to a range of applications and would ensure that all computer users were using the same, centrally updated and maintained, reliable and resilient store of data. The system would not simply carry out operational processing of simple transactions; it would provide information on which meaningful decisions could be made. For a number of reasons – connected with the limits of then current hardware, software and people skills, and connected with the unreasonable expectations of some users – this never really happened; it was always just around the corner. And then the personal computer (PC) arrived.

Citation

Daniels, S. (1995), "Data warehousing", Work Study, Vol. 44 No. 7, pp. 4-5. https://doi.org/10.1108/00438029510096526