A ata warehouse is a repository of an organization's electronically stored data. Data warehouses are designed to facilitate reporting and analysis. This classic definition of the data warehouse focuses on data storage. However, the means to retrieve and analyze data, to extract, transform and load data, and to manage the dictionary data are also considered essential components of a data warehousing system. Many references to data warehousing use this broader context. An expanded definition for data warehousing includes business intelligence tools, tools to extract, transform, and load data into the repository, and tools to manage and retrieve metadata.