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How long a transition period is needed to safely change DW maintenance vendors?

Question: How long a transition period is needed to safely change DW maintenance vendors? Specifically, when the vendor is the one who built the DW. Is there a rule of thumb for this?

Chuck Kelley’s Answers: I do not know a rule of thumb. I would suspect the transition period ends when your group has sufficient (but not necessarily total) knowledge in the running and maintaining of the Data Warehouse.

Sid Adelman's answer: There is no reliable rule of thumb. It will depend on how much you have done yourself and how much you have outsourced. Since the vendor built it, they probably have you pretty well tied up. It will depend on how well they have documented their process and the implementation. Taking a wild guess on this one, unless they are different than most vendors, the documentation will be less than stellar. Since they are being replaced, they will not have much incentive to help you with the transition. They will probably replace all their good people with bench warmers. Unfortunately, the transition will be long and ugly. If it gets too terrible, Plan B would be to start from scratch.


Chuck Kelley is an internationally known expert in database and data warehousing technology. He has 30 years of experience in designing and implementing operational/production systems and data warehouses. Kelley has worked in some facet of the design and implementation phase of more than 50 data warehouses and data marts. He also teaches seminars, co-authored four books on data warehousing and has been published in many trade magazines on database technology, data warehousing and enterprise data strategies. He can be contacted at chuckkelley@usa.net.

Sid Adelman is a principal in Sid Adelman & Associates, an organization specializing in planning and implementing data warehouses, in data warehouse and BI assessments, and in establishing effective data architectures and strategies. He is a regular speaker at DW conferences. Adelman chairs the "Ask the Experts" column on www.dmreview.com. He is a frequent contributor to journals that focus on data warehousing. He co-authored Data Warehouse Project Management and is the principal author on Impossible Data Warehouse Situations with Solutions from the Experts and Data Strategy. He can be reached at (818) 783-9634 or sid@sidadelman.com. Visit his Web site at www.sidadelman.com.

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