A data mart is a repository of structured data intended for thematic use or servicing a specific area of the company’s activities. For example, a data mart for a legal department may contain information on contract deadlines, data on contractors and counterparties, and other important information to help lawyers effectively control document flow and the work of the department.
Unlike a data warehouse, a data mart contains only relevant, homogeneous, optimised and cleaned data. Nothing superfluous only the most important information. A data warehouse, on the other hand, can contain heterogeneous information. Most often, a data warehouse is accessed by a wide range of users, while a data mart is accessed by certain groups of specialists and employees.
An enterprise may have multiple data mart containing important information for different departments or entire areas of the company. The contents of data mart are often used as master data, for example, as a source for analyses or as references. Data mart can also serve as a basis for training ML models.