Data Vault Data Modeling

Hi

There is a requirement from one of the customers to use Data Vault Data Modeling for their proposed data warehouse. Can anyone explain which business industry this Data modeling is widely used ? Any advantage of using this data model in practical ?

- Uday

It is a popular methodology, with users across most industries, but for my needs it is not as good as Dimensional.

To me, Data Vault's biggest challenge is that it sees the data warehouse as the destination, whereas dimensional warehouses are a stepping stone to reports and visualisations. End users are never expected to directly access the Data Vault tables, they are generally seen as too complex and not structured for user queries. In other words, a customer can devote a project to a data vault, and end up with nothing in the hands of end users.

In fact, most data vault proponents still recommend the development of something approaching star schemas between the vault and the end user. Well, if you're going to do that, why not build proper dimensional warehouses in the first place?

Also, the costs of a data vault are considerably higher than a dimensional warehouse. There is an explosion in table counts, ETL/ELT is considerably more complex, and don't forget that you still need to build your dimensional warehouse before you can deliver value to your users.

If your priority is to deliver business value, stick with dimensional modelling.

Thanks a lot Ron.