Building a Data Warehouse: With Examples in SQL Server (Expert's Voice) [Hardcover]

Vincent Rainardi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 27, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1590599314 | ISBN-13: 978-1590599310 | Edition: 1

Building a Data Warehouse: With Examples in SQL Server describes how to build a data warehouse completely from scratch and shows practical examples on how to do it. Author Vincent Rainardi also describes some practical issues he has experienced that developers are likely to encounter in their first data warehousing project, along with solutions and advice. The relational database management system (RDBMS) used in the examples is SQL Server; the version will not be an issue as long as the user has SQL Server 2005 or later.

The book is organized as follows. In the beginning of this book (chapters 1 through 6), you learn how to build a data warehouse, for example, defining the architecture, understanding the methodology, gathering the requirements, designing the data models, and creating the databases. Then in chapters 7 through 10, you learn how to populate the data warehouse, for example, extracting from source systems, loading the data stores, maintaining data quality, and utilizing the metadata. After you populate the data warehouse, in chapters 11 through 15, you explore how to present data to users using reports and multidimensional databases and how to use the data in the data warehouse for business intelligence, customer relationship management, and other purposes. Chapters 16 and 17 wrap up the book: After you have built your data warehouse, before it can be released to production, you need to test it thoroughly. After your application is in production, you need to understand how to administer data warehouse operation.

What you’ll learn

• A detailed understanding of what it takes to build a data warehouse
• The implementation code in SQL Server to build the data warehouse
• Dimensional modeling, data extraction methods, data warehouse loading, populating dimension and fact tables, data quality, data warehouse architecture, and database design
• Practical data warehousing applications such as business intelligence reports, analytics applications, and customer relationship management

Who this book is for

There are three audiences for the book. The first are the people who implement the data warehouse. This could be considered a field guide for them. The second is database users/admins who want to get a good understanding of what it would take to build a data warehouse. Finally, the third audience is managers who must make decisions about aspects of the data warehousing task before them and use the book to learn about these issues.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 523 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (December 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590599314
• ISBN-13: 978-1590599310
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 1.5 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,012,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavy on practical tips, light on general principles October 7, 2008

By Christoffer Swanstrom

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

A very hands-on book about implementing a Data Warehouse using Microsoft SQL Serveer 2005. In fact, it is a bit too hands-on in the sense that it guides you through all clicks and keystrokes but is rather thin and vague on general design principles.

The author has set out to write "a book containing all the essential subjects of building a data warehouse" (quote from the introduction). However, given the breadth of the material the author tries to cover (and given the sometimes annoyingly plentiful screenshots and SQL code) there is not enough room to give the necessary background and generalize the examples enough to be more useful than just that, examples.

For a much better attempt to cover both principles and a specific platform, a much better choice is The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit (by Joy Mundy and Warren Thornthwaite), also covering SQL Server 2005.

For someone looking for just the practical part on how to use the Microsoft tools (SQL Server, SSIS, SSAS) to implement a Data Warehouse and already knows the general principles of data warehousing is probably better off buying a book or several books that cover just those specific tools.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely a book for the doers, excellent ETL part June 22, 2008

By Jiang Tang

Format:Hardcover

I have read all the major DW books for sql server. All of them fall short in practicality. This book is deceivingly thin (500 some pages), but it covers all the practical side of building a data warehouse using SQL server 2005. The author's experience shows through his handling of many of the practical issues encountered in implementing data warehouse. This book has excellent coverage on ETL process, oftentimes list several alternatives that suited people from different background.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential read. Practical & easy to understand. March 7, 2008

By SQL DBA/Developer

Format:Hardcover

This book is a must read for anyone embarking on a Data Warehouse project or who wants to learn more about a particular aspect of Data Warehousing. The book guides the reader through the principles underpinning Data Warehousing, with easy to understand definitions. It gives detailed insight into the design, build & testing phases essential to any successful Data Warehousing project. It even covers reporting; including using the Data Warehouse for Business Intelligence and Customer Relationship Management. Throughout the book the author describes potential problems and gives techniques on how to overcome them.
There are tons of practical examples from an author who has a wealth of technical experience in this field.

This book is highly recommended.