Initiating a Data Warehousing venture without fully understanding its implications to the business process and existing technologies can lead to a number of unpleasant surprises. Most organizations fail to plan ahead when launching complex ventures. Consider both business processes and existing technology to avoid budget overruns. This note highlights how a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis of the technical solution can mitigate some of these risks and get more out of the project.

Total Cost of Ownership

It is a complex process to manage the initial and ongoing technology costs of a firm's data warehouse. Leveraging TCO analysis and other tools to assist in planning and budgeting will keep the data warehousing project aligned to larger IT portfolio management and consolidation initiatives.