data mart (DM)

Data Mart (DM) is a database that refers to a department of a company, to a division or to product lines. Such a data mart is a sub- aspect of a data warehouse( DWH) and is therefore also referred to as a local data warehouse. The characteristics of the database of a data mart are the same with which data warehouses work.

Since the terms data mart and data warehouse are often erroneously used synonymously, it can be stated that a data warehouse is a central data storage for all company data, whereas in a data mart only the data of a specific department or business unit is stored, for example, data for project or personnel management.

Data marts are often at the beginning of the development of a company-wide data warehouse. The databases of a data mart, which can be implemented at short notice, provide quick access to data relating to the department, the production process, sales or another business unit. Depending on the application, the data from the data mart is analyzed and evaluated in separate computers according to organizational, technical, production or customer-specific requirements.