A data mart is a collection of subject or department specific data that has been extracted, transformed, restructured and loaded into an external data repository. The data is usually aggregated and summarized. The environment is stable and typically used to make strategic decisions. A farm of data marts can be used instead of a data warehouse.

With the data transformed and restructured, the end user can easily access the information using a variety of desktop decision support tools. Decision support staff can concentrate on analyzing information instead of determining how to access the data. Data marts put the right information into the hands of the decision makers when they need it.

MB Foster delivers data marts for Escalate Retail on HP 3000 and other platforms, Amisys HP 3000 and Amisys Advanced, ManMan HP 3000 and Custom applications.

An operational data store is an updated set of integrated operational data used for tactical decision making. The data is current and is subject (e.g. customers) oriented not function (e.g. order entry) oriented.

The operational data store is current-valued and therefore does not contain history. It is volatile meaning that queries performed at different times will likely have different results because the data has changed. Updates are performed in near real-time.

MBF-UDASynch is the central processing component for MB Foster's near real-time Operational Data Store.