Data mart

Warehouses and data marts are built because the information in the database is not organized in a way that makes it readily accessible.

While transactional databases are designed to be updated, data warehouses or marts are read only.

Data warehouses are designed to access large groups of related records.

The related term spreadmart is a pejorative describing the situation that occurs when one or more business analysts develop a system of linked spreadsheets to perform a business analysis, then grow it to a size and degree of complexity that makes it nearly impossible to maintain.

This view helps to reduce costs and provides fast development, but can create an inconsistent data warehouse, especially in large organizations.