A few weeks ago I received a surprisingly open and honest feedback on my recently published article "13 tips ...". I never ever expected that! After a short email exchange, I was allowed to publish the feedback anonymously. Below is the incredible feedback[3]. You see, you are not alone with the challenges of a Data Vault project:
Hi Dirk
Thanks for sending me the English version of the paper. I'm based in […] [1] and Data Vault is not generally established here yet.
We're failing on 8 of these points. […]
My summary:
1) Do without knowledge bases and expert opinions!
We've done DV training but could do with some external support.
2) The Data Vault standard is only a rough guide!
Some people think we can come up with our own version of DV for our company.
3) The understanding of subject matter is overrated!
We're using primary keys from the source systems
4) Conceptual modeling is a waste of time!
We're doing ok on this one. Have done lots of BEAM workshops to base our conceptual models on.
5) Do without the support of your BI department!
Some members of the BI team are on the DV project
6) Always think in whole layers!
Haven't fallen into this trap
7) To do things in a big way
We're trying to implement on a Hadoop platform and are having to make lots of compromises. It would be easier to implement on RDBMS.
8) Too much automation dilutes the quality!
We are trying to build our own automaton engine. Unfortunately, the proof of concept has been hardened with only basic functionality
9) Single Point of Facts? Unnecessary raw data and redundancy!
Some people think we don’t need a Raw Vault since we have a Persistent Staging layer.
10) Never use hubs for transactions!
Ok on this one
11) Save yourself tracking satellites!
Ok on this
12) Allow access only to the Business Vault and never to the Raw Vault!
We're planning to allow access to the data marts on top of DV, not to the DV itself except for advanced users.
13) No raw data for the department!
We think our users aren't capable of querying the DV.
We have certainly learnt a lot along the way. I believe you learn more by making mistakes. The combination of 1) & 2) has led us down a path that's very difficult to get back on track. […]
Thanks so much
Cheers
Mr. Vault, Data Vault [2]
If you have experienced something similar, I would be happy if you share your experiences with me [contact].
So long,
Dirk
[1] On the other side of the world (from my perspective :) ).
[2] Name was changed by me, the author of the email is known to me.
[3] 2019-05-27: Updated 7),9) and 12)