Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)There are a lot of data warehousing books out there that try to answer the question: 'Why'? Why data warehouses are needed to help businesses make better decisions - why the OLTP systems that run the business can't do this - and sometimes even why businesses ought to invest in data warehouses. These books were terrifically useful to us years ago, when we needed help (and scholarly footnotes) in our data warehouse project proposals. This book is not one of those - it is all about:
How
How to actually design and build a repository that will deliver real value to real people. In this reviewer's opinion, Ralph Kimball's many contributions related to the 'how' of data warehousing stand alone.
An engineer wishing to jump-start his or her data warehouse education would need to read Ralph's Data Warehouse Toolkit first edition, his Data Webhouse Toolkit... a bunch of "Data Warehouse Designer" Intelligence Enterprise magazine articles... AND lurk on the Data Warehousing List Server...for a few years (all terrific resources - by the way) - in order to stockpile the knowledge that is crisply presented here.
No shortcuts taken by the authors that I can spot: all of the toughest dimensional design issues that I've tripped on - and that I can remember surfacing on in discussion groups over the past few years - are addressed in this significantly updated text. Not all of the solutions are 'pretty' - but it is clear that they thoughtfully address the problem. This approach, in my opinion, instills student confidence - and lets us know that we are getting sound instruction - not dogma.
The authors have been listening to and addressing the data warehouse community's 'pain' through periodicals and posts for years - but this book pulls these point solutions together very nicely. I learned a surprising number of really useful new techniques, and was genuinely enlightened by the 'Present Imperatives and Future Outlook' section.
As in the first edition, there is minimal philosophical lecturing, and zero religion. Instead, we get generous helpings of real-world case studies - aptly applied to progressively more advanced series of design concepts.
This style absolutely works for me. And I suspect that engineering mindsets typical of the folks that build these things will likely agree. In short, the Data Warehouse Toolkit Second Edition will significantly lighten the load of books that I carry between data warehouse engagements.
Jim Stagnitto
Llumino, Inc.
www.llumino.com
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The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling (Second Edition)The latest edition of the single most authoritative guide on dimensional modeling for data warehousing!
Dimensional modeling has become the most widely accepted approach for data warehouse design. Here is a complete library of dimensional modeling techniques-- the most comprehensive collection ever written. Greatly expanded to cover both basic and advanced techniques for optimizing data warehouse design, this second edition to Ralph Kimball's classic guide is more than sixty percent updated.
The authors begin with fundamental design recommendations and gradually progress step-by-step through increasingly complex scenarios. Clear-cut guidelines for designing dimensional models are illustrated using real-world data warehouse case studies drawn from a variety of business application areas and industries, including:
* Retail sales and e-commerce
* Inventory management
* Procurement
* Order management
* Customer relationship management (CRM)
* Human resources management
* Accounting
* Financial services
* Telecommunications and utilities
* Education
* Transportation
* Health care and insurance
By the end of the book, you will have mastered the full range of powerful techniques for designing dimensional databases that are easy to understand and provide fast query response. You will also learn how to create an architected framework that integrates the distributed data warehouse using standardized dimensions and facts.
This book is also available as part of the Kimball's Data Warehouse Toolkit Classics Box Set (ISBN: 9780470479575) with the following 3 books:
The Data Warehouse Toolkit, 2nd Edition (9780471200246)
The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit, 2nd Edition (9780470149775)
The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit (9780764567575)
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Click here for more information about The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling (Second Edition)
