What is a primary purpose of a data warehouse?

• A. To handle daily transactional processing
• B. To consolidate managerial information into a single system
• C. To enforce data retention policies
• D. To increase data redundancy

Answer: (B)

A data warehouse is designed to support informed decision making by collecting data from diverse sources and presenting it as a single, coherent store for analysis. Its primary purpose is to provide consolidated managerial information in one system, enabling reporting, dashboards, and strategic insights across the organization. This differs from daily transactional processing, which is handled by operational systems optimized for many small, real-time transactions. It also isn’t primarily about enforcing data retention policies or increasing data redundancy; those concerns relate to governance and design choices, while the warehouse’s value lies in enabling historical analysis and consistent reporting through a centralized, analytics-friendly data view.