from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
data mart
<database> A type of {data warehouse} designed primarily to
address a specific function or department's needs, as opposed
to a data warehouse which is traditionally meant to address
the needs of the organisation from an enterprise perspective.
In addition, a data mart often uses {aggregation} or
summarisation of the data to enhance query performance.
However, it is important to maintain the ability to access the
underlying base data to enable {drill-down analysis} as
necessary.
(1998-04-24)