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  • Subject: Re: What is a "database"?
  • From: Joe Teff <joeteff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 17:52:30 -0600

> Data Mining is a new concept.  Data Mining looks at data in
> a different matter than a simple data base.  Say, for instance,
> you have all your sales in a file (most people do).  You also
> have your vendor file, and the dates.
> 
> You now look at your data by dates, say, and see that a
> certain product sells 25% more during a certain 3 month period
> then any other months.  Looking for a correlation you see the
> months are November, December and January.
> 
> By data mining you can, as administration, say you need to stock
> up on umbrellas 25% more during the winter months <g>
> 
> Stuff like that.  I don't think the title should apply to a programmer,
> though, as that's not really what programmers do.  Do they ever
> get titles right?

Data Mining is intended to be used on a data warehouse rather than on
normalized files. Designing files in a data warehouse is very much
different than in your transaction processing system. One of the goals
is to store as much needed data in a single file instead of accross
multiple files. This reduces the joins and knowledge of how the files
fit together.

In a normalized database, you would have the following files for sales:

        Customer Master
        Customer Type Table
        Sales Order Header
        Sales Order Detail
        Item Master
        Product Line Table
        Vendor Master
           .
           .
           .

In a data warehouse, you may just have one file with all of the
information
in each record. Data warehouses are typically designed for ease of
reporting
over any other consideration. You may even keep multiple copies like
both
a detail file and several summarized files sorted and summarized
differently.
You may even create a database from the info on a report. This allows
the
users to go in and analyze the report as needed or even play "what if"
games.

Joe Teff
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