On-demand multidimensional data integration: toward a semantic foundation for cloud intelligence

Cloud intelligence is a collection of technologies emerging from the migration of business intelligence and analytics technologies to a cloud computing environment combined with exploiting the massive range of new intelligence opportunities opened up by cloud computing. Cloud computing introduces several trends which require traditional business intelligence techniques to be re-thought, including agility, the ability to assemble resources, e.g., data sources, on-demand, and virtualization, e.g., that data are provided as a service over the web rather than stored in local databases. This paper focuses on the combination of data source agility and data-as-a-service virtualization and its use for cloud intelligence. After presenting the novel vision of the Cloud Warehouse, the paper goes on to present a comprehensive semantic foundation for on-demand multidimensional data integration, including formal data models, a range of query operators and re-write rules for optimization. This semantic foundation provides a sound formal basis for on-demand multidimensional data integration, which is a cornerstone of cloud intelligence.