The Benefits of Data Vault

Data Vault’s Magnificent Seven

A question that is often asked by those approaching Data Vault for the first time is, “what are the major benefits of incorporating Data Vault 2.0 into my new data platform design and delivery?”

According to Datavault CEO Neil Strange, who spoke on the subject at the Data Vault Alliance’s latest webinar (click here to watch), they can be summed up as offering seven major advantages.

The Benefits of Data Vault

a) AGILE WAYS OF WORKING – Arguably the biggest difference using Data Vault 2.0 to build a new data platform, is that inherently it supports an Agile project approach.

Whereas in the past, executives tasked with modernising their data platform would have been locked into a lengthy and costly exercise, Data Vault 2.0 means that projects can be broken down into manageable steps – rather than big strides often lasting 12-18 months. The new agile ways of working mean engineers can configure one particular element of a system, adding new data sources in a stepwise manner.

Creating a working prototype has never been easier or cheaper. Data can be transformed accordingly and – crucially – tested on a new platform demonstrating the suitability of the Data Vault method, with the option to build out the prototype to become a fully operational solution.

b) ADDITIVE APPROACH – Indeed, using Data Vault in this way, means businesses can start on a small scale data warehouse which can be built on – and built out – in an evolutionary manner, bringing less disruption all-round.Migration can be incremental, eliminating many of the risks associated with “big bang” migrations.

No business is static, so as your organisation grows – and the business environment changes – your data warehouse can evolve and adapt without the needed for a total overhaul, helping to future-proof your platform.For example, a Data Vault 2.0 approach means no reworking is required when it comes to adding additional data sources.

c) PROVEN SCALABILITY – By choosing Data Vault 2.0, you are safe in the knowledge you have gone with a proven method capable of handling everything from gigabytes to petabytes.

So no matter how much your business – and consequently the data generated – grows, your data platform can grow accordingly without the need for any changes to the architecture.

d) AUTOMATION DRIVEN PRODUCTIVITY – Another major benefit comes from the greater productivity Data Vault 2.0 will help you achieve, saving costs along the way.Data Vault has “templatable” working methods, with standardised processes driven by metadata, using well-defined and tested models. It is possible to automatically generate between 80 and 95 per cent of the ETL required for loading data into the Data Vault.

Therefore, you will be able to use a smaller skilled team and improve the long-term maintainability of the code.

e) AUDITABLE – Most businesses need to be sure their data is stored in such a way that its source is fully traceable, to meet increasing privacy and security concerns as well as industry regulations.

Because Data Vault separates the raw from the derived data – by using metadata to identify the different source systems, changes are always incremental.

The results are therefore never lost, leaving you with an audit trail and having the ability to go back to a certain point in time and be confident of the answers to Who? What? Where? and When? because Data Vault records the data’s original form and tracks how it may have been transformed along the way.

f) ENTERPRISE WIDE COVERAGE – Data Vault is really good at building out a data model of various aspects of an organisation and tying them together into a joined-up model of how the business works.

It offers up an integrated view with everything from Human Resources, to customer information and sales, to allow for joined up enquiries and queries over the data set, creating a company-wide view of your operations.

g) EASE OF INTEGRATION – Finally, in meeting that need to be able to deal with the past and the many ways in which businesses generate and store their data, Data Vault 2.0 is particularly good at combining different data sources around addressable keys – the hubs and links in a data model. This helps end-users in business intelligence teams to deliver insights from a variety of different data sets.

Having already discussed the need for data to be traceable, Data Vault’s strength in data lineage means it is reversible so Business Intelligence teams can go back to key timelines in the data’s history and undo any changes made to your data if you find errors.

In conclusion, Data Vault 2.0 offers many of the features businesses are looking for in their data platform modernization projects.

As well as ourselves at Datavault, there is a growing community of experts, trainers and users, willing to share their experiences and knowledge, such as the Data Vault Alliance, so you will not feel your problems and challenges are unique. As happens when adopting any new method it is easy to make some “rookie” mistakes so some professional training and coaching is recommended. Neil says many clients even get help building their business case and running a prototype to demonstrate what’s possible, enabling them to build the case for improving, creating or replacing their data platforms and rapidly improving their Business Intelligence and Analytics capabilities.