The SusCity Big Data Warehousing Approach for Smart Cities

Abstract

Nowadays, the concept of Smart City provides a rich analytical context, highlighting the need to store and process vast amounts of heterogeneous data flowing at different velocities. This data is defined as Big Data, which imposes significant difficulties in traditional data techniques and technologies. Data Warehouses (DWs) have long been recognized as a fundamental enterprise asset, providing fact-based decision support for several organizations. The concept of DW is evolving. Traditionally, Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMSs) are used to store historical data, providing different analytical perspectives regarding several business processes. With the current advancements in Big Data techniques and technologies, the concept of Big Data Warehouse (BDW) emerges to surpass several limitations of traditional DWs. This paper presents a novel approach for designing and implementing BDWs, which has been supporting the SusCity data visualization platform. The BDW is a crucial component of the SusCity research project in the context of Smart Cities, supporting analytical tasks based on data collected in the city of Lisbon.