Single Vendor or Best-of-Breed

Single Vendor or Best-of-Breed. Vendors conic in a variety of categories, there are multiple vendors and products catering to the many functions of the data warehouse, so what are the options? I low should you decide? Two major options are: (1) Use the products of a single vendor. (2 (use products from more than one vendor, selecting appropriate tools.

Choosing a single vendor solution has a few advantages:

• High level of integration among the took
• Constant look and feel
• Seamless cooperation among components
• Centrally managed information exchange
• Overall price negotiable

This approach will naturally enable your data warehouse to be well integrated and function coherently. However, only a few vendors such as IBM and NCR offer fully integrated solutions.

Reviewing this specific option further, here are the major advantages of the best-of-breed solution that combines products from multiple vendors:

• Could build an environment to fit your organization
• No need to compromise between database and support tools
• Select products best suited for the function

With the best-of-breed approach, compatibility among the tools from the different vendors could become a serious problem. If you are taking this route, make sure the selected tools are proven be compatible. In this case, staying power of individual vendors is crucial. Also, you will have less bargaining power with regard to individual products and may incur higher overall expense. Make a note of the recommended approach: have one vendor for the database and the information delivery functions, and pick and choose other vendors for the remaining functions. However the multivendor approach is not advisable if your environment is not heavily technical.