WhereScape RED Architectural Overview
This white paper WhereScape Architectural Overview is available in a PDF format. For further white papers about WhereScape RED see our white paper library in the Resources section.
WhereScape RED is an Integrated Development Environment for building, enhancing and prototyping data warehouses. It uses a database (DB2, Oracle, SQL Server or Teradata) for processing rather than a proprietary ETL engine.
The WhereScape RED Desktop reads from and writes to a set of database metadata tables (WhereScape RED Repository™) that are stored in the Target Data Warehouse. A WhereScape RED Repository™ is installed in each target data warehouse environment – development, test, production etc.
WhereScape RED generates database specific objects (such as tables, indexes and cubes) as well as procedural code and scripts.
Once created, these standard database objects can be scheduled through the integrated WhereScape scheduler and edited, versioned and backed up through the WhereScape RED Desktop. The integrated metadata can also be used to automatically generate data warehouse documentation, diagrams and lineage information.
The WhereScape RED Desktop is the main interface into the WhereScape RED Repository™. From the WhereScape RED Desktop connections can be set up to a WhereScape RED Repository™ (for metadata) and from the external data sources to the Target Data Warehouse (for data loading).
The WhereScape RED Repository™ contains metadata about the objects created in the Target Data Warehouse and metadata about Dependent Objects. Metadata is created implicitly as operations are performed in the WhereScape RED Desktop and can be maintained manually. Metadata is used to generate DDL and DML and to drive the data warehouse wizards, scheduler and automated documentation. Existing data warehouse tables can be identified (retrofitted) to the WhereScape RED Repository™.
Each WhereScape RED Repository™ can have one or more schedulers associated with it, and the schedulers can either be Unix, Linux or Windows based. A scheduler polls the metadata looking for tasks that are available to run. Typically tasks update the metadata, which is the basis for the workflow. The workflow routines are standard in generated code and can be easily added to manually created code.
Dependent Objects are external to the Target Data Warehouse, but still have metadata about them stored in the WhereScape RED Repository™. Associating metadata with the Dependent Objects allows them to be created, managed and documented within the WhereScape environment. Dependent Objects include Microsoft Analysis Services cubes, MicroStrategy Projects and export objects used for downstream feeds.