What Is Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW)?

Data warehouses are the corporate equivalent of storage space for your most prized possessions. Instead of being in your basement or attic, it's in the cloud. Instead of just being for you, it's for everyone at your company—and that means no one can sneak in and steal your stuff! What kind of stuff do companies store in their data warehouses? All sorts of things. They might collect information about customers—what they buy, when, and how often they buy it—so they can sell more things later. They might track all their customer communications and use that data to ensure their customer service is top-notch. They might even track how many hours each employee works to know who deserves raises and doesn't deserve raises because they're lazy bums who never do anything all day! A data warehouse is much like a library for your business. It's an archive of all the information you need to run your company—but instead of having to go and search through the archives yourself, it's all neatly organized, indexed, and ready to be accessed by anyone who needs it. When you think about it this way, it's pretty clear why Bill Inmon (who wrote the book on data warehouses) called them "non-volatile." That means that the information in the warehouse never changes—it's always there so that people can keep using it. This makes them really useful for long-term analysis. Some people call them corporate data warehouses because large corporations and companies often use them—but nonprofits and government agencies also build their corporate data warehouses! So next time someone asks what a data warehouse is, tell them it's a giant safe where you keep all your valuables so no one will ever be able to take them away from you again!