Data Mart

Definition

A data mart is a small-sized data warehouse focused on a specific subject. While a data warehouse is for an entire enterprise, a data mart is built to address the specific analysis needs of a business unit. Hence, we can define a data mart as a small-sized data warehouse that contains a subset of the enterprise data warehouse or a limited volume of aggregated data for specific analysis needs of a business unit, rather than the needs of the whole enterprise. Thus, an enterprise usually ends up having many data marts.

Main Text

While a data warehouse is for a whole enterprise, a data mart focuses on a specific subject of a specific business unit. Thus, the design and management of a data warehouse must consider the needs of the whole enterprise, while those of a data mart are focused on the analysis needs of a specific business unit such as the sales department or the finance department. Thus, a data mart shares the characteristics of a data warehouse, such as being...