From the father of the data warehouse, a dynamic new approach to meeting your evolving business needs for information. From traditional data warehousing to data marts and operational data stores, a dizzying array of architectures and tools are now available to help enterprises strategically use and manage information. Each has its unique costs and benefits associated with delivering value to the business. But, despite all the hype, not all solutions are equally well suited to every company's needs. In Corporate Information Factory, Bill Inmon, Claudia Imhoff, and Ryan Sousa introduce a practical and proven framework that shows companies how to leverage these solutions to build a company-wide information ecosystem. Writing for corporate database and data warehouse managers, Inmon, Imhoff, and
William H. Inmon is an American computer scientist, recognized by many as the father of the data warehouse. Inmon wrote the first book, held the first conference (with Arnie Barnett), wrote the first column in a magazine and was the first to offer classes in data warehousing. Inmon created the accepted definition of what a data warehouse is - a subject-oriented, non-volatile, integrated, time-variant collection of data in support of management's decisions. Compared with the approach of the other pioneering architect of data warehousing, Ralph Kimball, Inmon's approach is often characterized as a top-down approach.