Top 20 Data Warehouse Interview Questions | 2023 Interview Tips

Data warehousing refers to the secure electronic information stored by a business or other entity in a controlled environment. This is accomplished by creating a repository of historical data that can be retrieved and examined to provide meaningful insight into the organization’s operational processes.

Data warehousing is a critical component of corporate intelligence and should not be overlooked. Note this as it may serve as a necessary answer when you are being asked data warehouse interview questions.

That broader word refers to the information architecture that modern firms use to keep track of their past triumphs and failures and inform their judgments about their future operations. The business became more dependent on computer systems to create, store, and retrieve crucial business documents, resulting in the requirements development to warehouse data.

When IBM researchers Barry Devlin and Paul Murphy presented their study findings in 1988, they established the notion of data warehousing. Data warehousing is intended to make it possible to analyze previously collected information.

When comparing data gathered from multiple heterogeneous sources, gaining insight into performing a business is possible. A data warehouse should allow its users to execute queries and perform analyses on historical data collected from transactional sources, and it is built to do so.

The data entered in the warehouse does not change and cannot be changed. The warehouse is the data source from which analysts can analyse historical events, with a particular emphasis on changes. Secure, dependable, easily retrievable, and manageable data storage must be the goal while storing warehoused information.

This article will treat the top 20 data warehouse interview questions in 2023.

What is a Data Warehouse?

This question might be one data warehouse interview question that will be asked. So, pay attention and read intently.

Data warehouses are databases that collect information from various divisions inside a corporation and store it in a central location. Data warehouses collect and categorize the information from several departments, such as sales, marketing, and market research.

Establishing a merged data system within a firm can cause more effective communication and meaningful policy implementation across all divisions.

While a traditional database can collect information, a data warehouse can also analyze and sort that information. In business intelligence, data warehouses are one of the most essential tools.

The company examines previous data to establish a future strategy called “business intelligence.” A data warehouse does more than categorize data; it also translates the information into understandable dashboards that the entire organization can use or by individual departments.

Companies can use data warehouses as decision-support tools to help them make better business decisions. A data warehouse can identify which systems within a firm are functioning correctly and which ones are not functioning correctly by running reports on historical data about the organization’s operation.

A data warehouse can visually represent which practices are doing the best for a firm by ranking the performance of various products or services in a ranking system. Data warehouses may aid in the effectiveness of business intelligence analysis in assuring a company’s long-term growth.

Now, we might have answered one data warehouse interview question.

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Benefits of Data Warehouse

This can also be one data warehouse interview question; below are the benefits of a data warehouse;

#1. It brings together information from several departments

Companies that manage a data warehouse can often ensure that every area of the organization uses the most up-to-date information available at publication.

Multiple divisions within a large organization can benefit from the ability to access standard information, allowing them to work more efficiently as a team.

Individual departments are better able to report their data to the central system when they use data warehouses, and they are also better able to make informed judgments when they have access to the same central data.

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#2. Maintains a history of data for a variety of businesses.

A data warehouse storage facility allows businesses to preserve historical data for long-term use. This is because the purpose of data warehouses is to catalogue all the available data in massive archives.

Because data warehouses can do analysis and computations based on all pertinent numbers, including historical and contemporary corporate information, maintaining a long history of a firm’s data allows them to do so more efficiently.

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#3. The company provides standardized dashboards to diverse divisions.

When relevant performance measures are examined, it frequently presented in a format inaccessible to the average employee.

When using data warehouses, you develop dashboards that display all the relevant information straightforwardly.

Employees who regularly access a dashboard of performance indicators can stay informed about their performance and the organisation’s demands.

Read also: Is Data Analyst A Good Career Path in 2023?

#4. Enhances the overall quality of a company’s data

Data warehouses can store a wide range of data types and convert them into a format that may be used.

This means that they can keep track of the data that a corporation has collected. Aside from that, data warehouses may transform all historical information into relevant data kinds that the system can use to analyze the operation of a company more readily.

#5. Ensures that a transactional database is running as efficiently as possible

Many data solutions include a transactional database and a data storage device in the same package. The execution of any analysis in these types of systems will likely result in the transactional database failing to function correctly.

A data warehouse with a different solution for your transactional database helps you evaluate your vital data quickly, reducing the likelihood of experiencing system outages.

Top 20 Data Warehouse Interview Questions in 2023

These are the top data warehouse interview questions. Going through these questions will prepare you for the interview ahead.

#1. What is Data warehousing?

This question has been treated previously. This is a summary. A Data warehouse is a data repository used for Management decision support systems. A data warehouse comprises a wide variety of data with a high level of business conditions simultaneously.

In a single sentence, it is a repository of integrated information which can be available for queries and analysis.

#2. What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence, also known as DSS – Decision support system, refers to the technologies, applications and practices for collecting, integrating, and analysing business-related information or data. It even, it helps to see the data on the information itself.

#3. What is Dimension Table?

A dimension table is a table that contains attributes of measurements stored in fact tables. This table consists of hierarchies, categories, and logic that can traverse nodes.

#4. What is a Fact Table?

The fact table contains the measurement of business processes and foreign keys for the dimension tables. Example: If the business process is the manufacturing of bricks.

The average number of bricks one person/machine produces measures the business process.

#5. What are the stages of Data warehousing?

  • Offline Operational Database
  • Offline Data Warehouse
  • Real-Time Data warehouse
  • Integrated Data warehouse

#6. What is Data Mining?

Data Mining will analyze the data in different dimensions or perspectives and summarize it into useful information. They can be queried and retrieved data from the database in their format.

#7. What is OLTP?

OLTP, abbreviated as On-Line Transaction Processing, is an application that changes the data whenever received and has many simultaneous users.

#8. What is OLAP?

OLAP, abbreviated as Online Analytical Processing, is a system that collects, manages, and processes multi-dimensional data for analysis and management purposes.

#9. What is ODS?

ODS is called an Operational Data Store, a repository of real-time operational data rather than long-term trend data.

#10. What is the difference between View and Materialized View?

A view is a virtual table that takes the query’s output and can be used in place of tables.

A materialized view is only indirect access to the table data by storing the results of a query in a separate schema.

#11. What is ETL?

ETL is abbreviated as Extract, Transform and Load. ETL is software used to read the data from the specified data source and extract a desired subset of data. Next, it transforms the data using rules and lookup tables and converts it to the desired state.

Then, the load function is used to load the resulting data to the target database.

#12. What is VLDB?

VLDB is abbreviated as Very Large Database, and its size will be over one terabyte database. These are decision support systems that are used to serve numerous users.

#13. What is real-time data warehousing?

Real-time data warehousing captures the business data whenever it occurs. When business activity is completed, that data will be available in the flow and become available for use instantly.

#14. What are aggregate tables?

Aggregate tables contain the existing warehouse data, which has been grouped to a certain level of dimensions. It is easy to retrieve data from the aggregated tables than from the original table, which has more records.

This table reduces the load in the database server and increases the performance of the query.

#15. What are factless fact tables?

Factless fact tables are fact table that doesn’t contain a numeric fact column in the fact table.

#16. How can we load the time dimension?

Time dimensions are usually loaded through all likely dates in a year and can be done through a program. Here, 100 years can be represented with one row per day.

#17. What are Non-additive facts?

Non-Addictive facts cannot be summed up for any of the dimensions in the fact table. If there are changes in the dimensions, the same points can be helpful.

#18. What is conformed fact?

Conformed fact is a table that can be used across multiple data marts combined with multiple fact tables.

#19. What is Data mart?

A Datamart is a specialized version of Data warehousing. It contains a snapshot of operational data that helps business people to analyse past trends and experiences. A data mart helps to emphasize easy access to relevant information.

#20. What is Active Data warehousing?

An active data warehouse is a data warehouse that enables decision-makers within a company or organization to manage customer relationships effectively and efficiently.

Conclusion

A data warehouse stores information about a company’s business and how it has performed over time that is accessible to anyone.

It was developed with input from employees in the company’s essential departments. It serves as a repository for analysis that discloses the company’s past achievements and mistakes and provides guidance on future decisions.

FAQs

What are the types of Dimensional modelling?

There are three types of Dimensional Modeling, and they are:
Conceptual Modeling
Logical Modeling
Physical Modeling

What is the difference between ER modelling and dimensional modelling?

ER modelling will have logical and physical models, but Dimensional modelling will have only Physical models. While the former is used for normalizing the OLTP database design, the latter is used for de-normalizing the ROLAP and MOLAP design.

What are the proper steps to take to build a data warehouse?

The following are the steps to be followed to build the data warehouse:
Gathering business requirements
Identifying the sources
Identifying the facts
Defining the dimensions
Defining the attributes
Redefine the dimensions and attributes if required
Organize the Attribute hierarchy
Define Relationships
Assign unique Identifiers

References

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