Data warehouses are large integrated databases that connect relevant information from other sources into a single accessible format. They allow users to look at data from multiple operational systems across multiple dimensions, including time. These systems have the advantage that they can import and analyze data from a variety of other systems that cannot otherwise communicate with each other.
For example, an organization would use the information that's stored in its data warehouse to find out what day of the week they sold the most widgets in May 1992, or how employee sick leave the week before Christmas differed between California and Quebec from 2001-2005. In other words, the data warehouse contains the raw material for management's decision support system.
The critical factor leading to the use of a data warehouse is that a data analyst can perform complex queries and analysis (such as data mining) on the information without slowing down the operational systems.
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