Chapter 5.1

The Siloed Application Environment

Abstract

Classical data architecture begins with application siloed systems. With application silos
comes the recognition that data are not integrated. Management cannot look across the
corporation and ask the question—“for my corporation....” Another perspective of siloed
systems is that they are sometimes called “spider web systems.” In order to transition out
of the world of spider web systems, the organization builds a data warehouse. The
purpose of the data warehouse is to provide the corporation with integrated, bedrock data
that can be relied on. The data warehouse is created by ETL technology. Another
purpose of the data warehouse is to provide a place for historical data. Prior to the data
warehouse, there was no place in the corporation for historical data.

Keywords

Historical data; Corporate perspective of data; Spider web systems; Siloed systems; Data
warehouse; ETL; Granularity of data

The road to siloed applications starts simply and innocently enough. One day, the
corporation sees a need for a computerized system. They build an application. Soon,
another group in the organization also spots a need for computerization in another place.
A new application is spawned. Soon, there are lots of applications that have been built.

The Challenge of Siloed Applications

The challenges presented by siloed systems start innocently enough. The problems with
siloed applications begin as a minor irritation or inconvenience. But over time, the
problems escalate from inconvenience to calamity. And there is never any easing of the
problems. It is eternal escalation.

Fig. 5.1.1 depicts the siloed applications that management wakes up to one day.

Chapter 5.1: The Siloed Application Environment