Real Time to Real Value

Real-Time to Real-Value

It has become popular to attach the term "real-time" to many concepts in business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) – real-time BI, real-time enterprise, real-time warehouse, real-time ETL (extract, transform and load), real-time analytics, and so on.

I dislike this usage because it conveys a partial truth while obscuring the important issues. In our industry, the usage of "real-time" as an adjective has unfortunately become marketing fluff. Some have suggested the term "right-time" as a substitute; however, that begs the question about what is right.

The Webster dictionary defines "real-time" as the simultaneous recording of an event with the actual occurrence of that event. In engineering disciplines, the term is extended to describe a system that records and responds to an event within milliseconds.

The history behind the term is fascinating. German military coined the phrase during World War II to describe their new approach to battlefield management, which complemented their blitzkrieg tactics. In earlier wars, small-scale models of the battlefield were created at the headquarters located some distance from the battle. Troops marched on foot into their positions; hence, troop movements could be easily tracked by sending written messages back to headquarters. With highly mobile tanks, artillery and trucks, the old approach become hopelessly out of sync with the reality on the battlefield. Therefore, the Germans officers moved their headquarters closer to the action and relied on radio messages to continuously update their information. Hence, they could watch the battle unfold in "real time."

The key concept behind "real time" is that our artificial representation must be in sync with the real world so that we can respond to events in an effective manner. In today's technology, the data warehouse has become that artificial representation of our real business world. In this regard, the primary purpose of the data...