There are two prevalent approaches to the development of Datawarehouse Architectures: A. Data Warehouse (DWH) bus architecture (introduced by Ralph Kimball) B. Corporate Information Factory CIF (introduced by Bill Inmon) In this article we analyse and compare these two approaches.

In the present and following article we shall describe the presentation area of the data warehouse. The term presentation is used to denote the fact that this is the area, where data are presented to its Customers (the business analysts). There is no globally acceptable standard on the development of the data warehouse presentation area.

In parts 2 & 3 of this article series, we described the data warehouse architecture according to the Kimball and the Inmon approach. In the present article we shall describe the main differences between the two approaches and their common points.

Decision support systems are usually based on the development of Data Warehouse infrastructures. A data warehouse architecture has two major areas: the staging area and the presentation area. In this article we present the staging area.

In the present article we shall describe the presentation area of the data warehouse, according to the Inmon approach. The Inmon approach (marketed as Corporate Information Factory) involves the holistic view of the Enterprise and its informational needs.