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The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit : Expert Methods for Designing, Developing, and Deploying Data Warehouses

The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit : With SQL Server 2005 and the Microsoft Business Intelligence Toolset

Database Design

The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling (Second Edition)

Format: Paperback
Author: Ralph Kimball
ReleaseDate: 26 April, 2002
Publisher: Wiley
Rating:

Very solid book
My company needed to understand and move forward on building a OLAP solution. As someone new to OLAP, I found this book to be VERY helpful really getting a solid handle on OLAP. This book helped my get a handle on what we needed to do, and a high level of how to go about it.

This is the first book I'd recommend to anyone interested in OLAP.
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More than just a great read
Although there are some chapters (the last two that deals with process and other issues, the biggest part of the book is solely about dimensional modeling. In my mind this book is defintely the most definitive guide to dimensional modeling. Yes the first chapter deals with what it is (in general), why we would like to use dimensional modeling and some myths and caveats. However, from chapter 2 through 12, the book is hand-on.

Chapters 2 - 5 is for me the most impressive chapters of the book as it takes several business processes that is common in many businesses and discuss the design of the star cshemas in great depth. However, nowhere in the book is any design upheld as a panacea -- everywhere the book discusses at great length the possible problems and the design decisions to be made. It thus emphasizes that there is no "one-size fits all" in dimensioanl modeling.

Chapters 6, 7 and 8 deals with CRM, Accounting and HR respectively, while chapters 9 - 14 deals with different industries and their peculiar problems. The industrues are: Telecomms and utilities, Transportation, Education, Healthcare and e-commerce. Each chapter introduces new design guidelines and new problem areas anbd their possible solutions. Chapter 15 deals with the Insurance industry and essentially serves as a nicesummary of the proposed techniques as most are emplyed in the Insurance case study.

If you do not have a fairly good understanding of dimensional modeling after reading this text I would be very surprised.

However, it is more than just a read to know about dimensional modeling. The way the case studies are handled and the problems identified and discussed also makes it a true reference book. I think evrybody involved in dimensional modeling should have one on his/her desk.

The standard
It gives beguinners a complete overview about the most important aspects (technologies and techniques) involved, for the advanced one this book a good reverece (especially in terms of data modelling). If you only have time to read one book about dwh, read this one.

His Lifecyle approach is still the standard in the industry for analytical systems.

I've been working now for several years in the industry and this book has helped me more than anything else, because Kimball shows you the true problems you usually face during implementing dss and provides practical and useful solutions.