Method and apparatus for transporting data for data warehousing applications that incorporates analytic data interface

A computer program product for tracking historical data from different sources, comprising:

• a computer-readable medium;
• and
• computer program code, encoded on the medium, for controlling a computer system to perform the operations of:
• processing source-specific data originating at sources with disparate formats into source-independent data with a single, common format;
• storing the source-independent data;
• automatically determining dimensions of the stored data having historically significant attributes;
• and
• in response to a change to a dimension having a historically significant attribute, creating a historical record of the change by:
• creating a first record for the dimension having a historically significant attribute;
• generating a first key;
• associating the first key with the first record;
• creating a second record to store the change to the dimension having a historically significant attribute;
• re-associating the first key with the second record;
• generating a second key;
• and
• associating the second key with the first record.

A system for tracking historical data from different sources, comprising:

• a source adapter for processing source-specific data originating at sources with disparate formats into source-independent data with a single, common format;
• and
• an analytic data interface for storing the source-independent data, automatically determining dimensions of the stored data having historically significant attributes, and creating a historical record of a change to a dimension having a historically significant attribute, wherein the analytic data interface further comprises:
• a record generation module for creating a first record for the dimension having a historically significant attribute and creating a second record to store the change to the dimension having a historically significant attribute;
• a key generation module for generating a first key and a second key to uniquely identify records;
• and
• an association module for associating the first key with the first record, re-associating the first key with the second record, and associating the second key with the first record.