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Business Intelligence at Ahold Netherlands
Pallas
the Albert Heijn Data Warehouse
A Description of its Architecture
Lidwine van AsWouter van AerleOctober 2004
 
Pallas - The Albert Heijn Data WarehousePage:
2
Table of content:
1. Introduction ______________________________________________________________3
1.1 Work Method and Organisation of Documents____________________________________ 31.2 Explaining the Choices _______________________________________________________ 31.3 Reference___________________________________________________________________ 41.4 About the Authors ___________________________________________________________ 4
 2. Rationale_________________________________________________________________5
2.1 Defining the Problem_________________________________________________________ 52.2 Solution ____________________________________________________________________ 5
 3. A Bird’s-eye View of Pallas __________________________________________________6  4. Functional Capability_______________________________________________________7 
4.1 Point of Departure ___________________________________________________________ 74.2 Process Orientation __________________________________________________________ 84.3 Quality of the Data___________________________________________________________ 94.4 Performance Capability for Reporting _________________________________________ 104.5 Other Performance Capabilities_______________________________________________ 10
 5. Technology ______________________________________________________________12
5.1 Infrastructure______________________________________________________________ 125.2 Architecture _______________________________________________________________ 13
5.2.1Overall Architecture_____________________________________________________________135.2.2Transaction Repository___________________________________________________________145.2.3Data Marts_____________________________________________________________________15
5.3 Data Staging Areas (DSA)____________________________________________________ 16
5.3.1Processing_____________________________________________________________________17
5.4 Interfaces and Interaction with Other Systems___________________________________ 18
6. Approach________________________________________________________________20
6.1 Organisational Measures_____________________________________________________ 20
6.1.1Current Services________________________________________________________________206.1.2Metadata______________________________________________________________________206.1.3New Services__________________________________________________________________21
6.2 Methods, Techniques and Documentation_______________________________________ 21
7. Costs and Benefits ________________________________________________________22
7.1 General Situation ___________________________________________________________ 227.2 Costs _____________________________________________________________________ 237.3 Benefits ___________________________________________________________________ 237.4 Future Prospects ___________________________________________________________ 24
 
Pallas - The Albert Heijn Data WarehousePage:
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1.
 
I
NTRODUCTION
This description of the architecture is the entry from Albert Heijn Competence Centre forBusiness Intelligence (CC-BI) to the Dutch Championship Architecture competition for2004. The IEEE recommended practice for architecture descriptions, IEEE 1471, has beenused as guiding principle.
1.1
 
Work Method and Organisation of Documents
In compliance with IEEE 1471, the primary stakeholders of the data warehouse and theirconcerns have been described. The concerns are then translated into and recapitulatedaccording to 4 angles of approach:
Stakeholders Concerns Approaches
User
What processes are supported? Whatfunctional capability is offered? What isthe quality level of the data?FunctionalCapability
Owner
What does the data warehouse cost? Whatdoes it produce? What are its prospects forthe future?Costs and Benefits
Internal Accounting Service
What is the quality level of the data? Howare security and privacy guaranteed? Howis trace ability guaranteed?FunctionalCapability
IT Management
How do we control and reduce costs?Approach
DWH technical team(development team, DWHarchitect, management team)
How is the data warehouse (DWH)organised? How is the demand forfunctional capability translated into atechnical solution?Technology,Approach
IT Management
How does the data warehouse fit in withAH’s IT environment?Technology
The chapter on
‘Rationale’
explains the reason for the system’s existence; after that thechapter on
‘A Bird’s-eye View of Pallas’
provides an overall description of the system.Then the chapters on
‘Functional Capability’
,
‘Technology’
,
‘Approach’
and
‘Costs and  Benefits’
elaborate further from the various angles of approach.
1.2
 
Explaining the Choices
Taking into account that in 2000 the original architectural design for Pallas filled73 pages, the present document is inevitably briefly worded. Not all subjects canbe treated with the same degree of depth. So a selection has to be made fromamong the supply of information.The most important basic principle that was applied here is that
what is unique
 
was preferred above what is trivial
.
 
For that reason, little attention was spent on
 
the privacy and security aspects of the data warehouse, since no measures havebeen taken in that territory that are essentially different from what one may expectfrom any system of this type.
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