Are there cases where database designers are not allowed to know the details of the data? I am looking for real-world examples to learn from — please.
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Are there cases where database designers are not allowed to know the details of the data? I am looking for real-world examples to learn from — please.
I can’t help but tell a story about database nightmares. One of the worst was when Amazon was first growing. Initially they only sold books, then expanded to music, and then to many other things.
For a period of about two years, Amazon would announce a new market every two or three months — children’s clothing, housewares, garden supplies, food, and so on. The database folks were tasked with developing and supporting the systems for the product lines. However, Amazon considered the new product announcements to be highly, highly secret.
In particular, the data warehouse people would be kept further from the loop. Sometimes, they would find out about a new line of business by reading news — and then have to support it in the data warehouse.
So, they had to develop a flexible database to meet unannounced business needs.
In any business environment, there are new needs that arise. I would suggest a book such as Ralph Kimball’s “Data Warehouse Toolkit” for more background on how to develop a fairly robust system.