Security Measures For Data warehouse

Data warehouse is an archive that stores the data of an enterprise gathered from multiple sources making it an environment suitable for optimal information processing. For any enterprise, a data warehouse is crucial since this comprehensive information stored in the data warehouse could be used to analyze long term data and carry out analysis of trends over a period of time. Since the data involved is accessible by different audiences through various leads, it requires a high degree of control and security. This paper is focused on highlighting the effective security measures that can be taken in the data warehouse design, an example scenario dealing with a secured solution for a health care system and key areas of providing security in a data warehouse. Most of the data warehouse developers treat security as a trivial issue while designing the data base. This could lead to devastating results in an enterprise where crucial data is managed and accessed from the data wares. Consider a scenario of a corporate IT firm designing a data warehouse consisting of data from various business units and branches. The firm has made it easy for all its employees to access data and diverse information which could be important in taking decisions. However, if necessary measures are not taken to impart security into the system, there is every possibility that important project details or personal details like salary, your bank statements and performance evaluation results could be easily accessed by hackers. Thus it is extremely important to have internal control and security mechanisms to protect the confidentiality and integrity of data without compromising on the availability of information.