Data warehouse tools

Many large Government software projects are designed and implemented as if they were satisfying requirements never seen before. There is a common tendency to start "from a blank sheet of paper". This is often because software engineers view projects in terms of specialized mission-critical applications that appear to have unique requirements. The common result is the constant reinvention of existing software and the rejection of sophisticated tools as not applicable to mission requirements that appear unique. The Oracle data warehouse approach has made a clear break from this expensive, application-oriented approach. In this new analytical environment, there is wide-spread recognition that existing application data is a potential information source for existing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) analytical tools whose value has been established by previous successful implementations. Critical legacy data can be accessed and transformed into a data warehouse using COTS development tools, the data COTS warehouse can be accessed by user-friendly analytical tools, and the data warehouse maintained by proven COTS administration tools.