➢ Introduction to Data Mining and Data Warehousing:
Data mining and data warehousing are essential components of modern information
technology and business intelligence. They play a crucial role in extracting valuable insights
from large volumes of data to support decision-making processes in various domains.
1. Introduction:
- In today's data-driven world, organizations generate and accumulate vast amounts of
data through their daily operations.
- Data mining and data warehousing are techniques and technologies that help
organizations harness the potential of this data for better decision-making, forecasting, and
improving business processes.
- They enable businesses to transform raw data into valuable information and knowledge.
2. Motivation:
- The motivation behind data mining and data warehousing lies in the need to make sense
of the ever-increasing volumes of data.
- Businesses aim to gain competitive advantages by identifying patterns, trends, and
insights hidden within their data.
- Efficient data management and analysis lead to improved decision-making, reduced
costs, and enhanced customer experiences.
3. Definition & Functionalities:
- Data Mining: It is the process of discovering hidden patterns, relationships, and trends in
large datasets using various techniques such as machine learning, statistical analysis, and
artificial intelligence.
- Data Warehousing: It involves the storage, integration, and retrieval of historical and
current data from different sources to support business intelligence and reporting.
- Functionalities include data extraction, transformation, loading (ETL), data modeling,
querying, and reporting.
4. Knowledge Discovery from Data (KDD) Process:
- KDD is a comprehensive process that encompasses data mining. It involves several
steps:
- Data Selection: Choose relevant data sources.
- Data Preprocessing: Clean and transform data for analysis.
- Data Reduction: Reduce data size without losing critical information.
- Data Mining: Apply algorithms to discover patterns.
- Pattern Evaluation: Assess the discovered patterns for their usefulness.
- Knowledge Presentation: Present results in a comprehensible format.
- Knowledge Utilization: Use the discovered knowledge for decision-making.
5. Data and Attributes:
- Data comprises facts, figures, and statistics that can be processed to obtain information.
- Attributes are characteristics or properties of data objects. For example, in a customer
database, attributes could include name, age, address, and purchase history.
6. Types and Properties of Attributes:
- Nominal Attributes: These are categorical attributes without any inherent order, like colors
or product categories.
- Ordinal Attributes: These have a natural order but lack meaningful numerical differences,
such as customer satisfaction levels (e.g., "low," "medium," "high").
- Interval Attributes: These have a meaningful order and equal intervals but no true zero
point (e.g., temperature in Celsius).
- Ratio Attributes: These have a meaningful order, equal intervals, and a true zero point
(e.g., height or income).
7. Types of Datasets:
- Record Datasets: These contain individual records as rows, where each record
represents an entity (e.g., a customer, a transaction).
- Graph Datasets: These represent data as graphs, where entities are connected by
relationships or edges (e.g., social networks or network traffic data).
- Ordered Datasets: These maintain a specific order among the data elements (e.g., time
series data or sequences).
8. Data Visualization:
- Data visualization is the graphical representation of data to aid in understanding and
interpreting patterns and trends.
- It includes various techniques like charts, graphs, heatmaps, and dashboards to make
data more accessible and informative.
9. Introduction to Database and Warehouse:
- A database is a structured collection of data organized for efficient storage, retrieval, and
manipulation.
- A data warehouse is a specialized database designed to store and manage large
volumes of historical and current data from various sources.
10. Components of Data Warehouse:
- Data Sources: These are the origins of data, including databases, spreadsheets,
external sources, etc.
- ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) Process: This involves extracting data from sources,
transforming it into a suitable format, and loading it into the data warehouse.
- Data Storage: The warehouse stores data in a structured manner to enable efficient
querying and analysis.
- Metadata Repository: It contains information about the data warehouse structure, data
lineage, and data definitions.
- Query and Reporting Tools: These tools allow users to access and analyze the data
stored in the data warehouse.
- Data Mart: A subset of a data warehouse focused on a specific business area or
department.
In conclusion, data mining and data warehousing are crucial components of the data-driven
decision-making process. They help organizations turn raw data into actionable insights,
improving their efficiency and competitiveness in today's data-centric world.
