The flattened paradigm of a data warehouse database allows for significantly faster select statements to be run against the database. Unlike most user-facing database queries, most data mining queries are highly complex and most work through a massive amount of data. Whereas a user-facing query usually takes less than a second to process, a data mining query may take hours. It is important to reduce the amount of time and processing required for data mining in order to keep costs down.
When used correctly, data warehousing and data mining can lead businesses to massive profits and savings. A retailer can gain detailed knowledge about what products are most likely to be the most sought after in specific regions. A car manufacturer can accurately predict the lifespan of a vehicle component and issue a pre-emptive notice or recall. Hospitals and medical services can begin to gain a big-picture view of the profile of a person who will suffer from a major illness. As mentioned by Hormazi and Giles (2004), data warehousing and data mining can effectively be utilized to help identify potential fraud and to help with risk management.
In order to more effectively pull desired data from a data warehouse, views are created. A view is a database element that has data in from an existing query. A query can be turned into a view and then that view referenced just like any other table in the database. The difference is that the data pulled from a view will be dynamic and current based on the current data in the database. A fact table in a data warehouse is likely to have a great deal more information in it than is required by any one process or any one report. For instance, an analyst at Honda may only be interested in sales data and not maintenance information. Or a manager may wish to run forecasts every month based on the previous four months. Since these subsets of data are to be used again and again, it makes sense to place them in views that will be available for those purposes.