Essential Oracle8i Data Warehousing: Designing, Building, and Managing Oracle Data Warehouses (Paperback)

by Gary Dodge (Author), Tim Gorman (Author) "So, you've been given the assignment of building a data warehouse..." (more)
Key Phrases: redo logfiles, single table cluster, entire database instance, Oracle Corporation, Oracle Parallel Query, Server Manager (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
"This book is the definitive guide for serious Oracle8i professionals and is required reading for all Oracle data warehousing practitioners."-Shannon Platz, Senior Director, Business Intelligence & Warehouse Global Service Line, Oracle Corporation

A complete hands-on guide to Oracle8i and earlier versions In this updated and expanded edition of their critically acclaimed Oracle8 Data Warehousing, Gary Dodge and Tim Gorman clearly explain everything you'll need to know to build and manage a large, high-performance data warehouse using Oracle8i. They provide a technical roadmap to the specific Oracle8 or Oracle8i features that are relevant to designing, building, tuning, and administering an Oracle data warehouse.

After a brief review of the basic concepts, you'll find descriptions of the various hardware platforms to support the Oracle data warehouse. The authors then cover the Oracle features that can enhance a large data warehouse, the design considerations for a warehouse, and the steps necessary to load data into the warehouse. You'll also find out how to perform parallel operations using Oracle8 and Oracle8i to accomplish massive tasks more quickly. And you'll discover the specific features and techniques for implementing a distributed architecture.

From the Back Cover
"This book is the definitive guide for serious Oracle8i professionals and is required reading for all Oracle data warehousing practitioners."–Shannon Platz, Senior Director, Business Intelligence & Warehouse Global Service Line, Oracle Corporation

A complete hands-on guide to Oracle8i and earlier versions In this updated and expanded edition of their critically acclaimed Oracle8 Data Warehousing, Gary Dodge and Tim Gorman clearly explain everything you’ll need to know to build and manage a large, high-performance data warehouse using Oracle8i. They provide a technical roadmap to the specific Oracle8 or Oracle8i features that are relevant to designing, building, tuning, and administering an Oracle data warehouse.

After a brief review of the basic concepts, you’ll find descriptions of the various hardware platforms to support the Oracle data warehouse. The authors then cover the Oracle features that can enhance a large data warehouse, the design considerations for a warehouse, and the steps necessary to load data into the warehouse. You’ll also find out how to perform parallel operations using Oracle8 and Oracle8i to accomplish massive tasks more quickly. And you’ll discover the specific features and techniques for implementing a distributed architecture.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 928 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471376787
• ISBN-13: 978-0471376781
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #820,331 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book before you start building DW on Oracle!, February 18, 2001

By	Ales Kavsek (Ljubljana, Slovenia) - See all my reviews

I found excellent description of this book in Bill Inmon's Foreword - it's written in comprehensible and down-to-earth manner. Both authors, on top of having real world experience on the subject, are also experienced trainers, so it's not a surprise that this book is readable and well organized at the same time.

First three chapters cover essentials in data warehousing, hardware architecture, and introduction to Oracle architecture and features. If you are not familiar with either concept, then you'll be glad that you choose this book just for the first three chapters alone!

Next four chapters are about designing data warehouse (metadata, star schema,...), building, populating and post-load processing in the data warehouse. If you already have some experience in Oracle8i, then you'll find most techniques described here very familiar (SQL*Plus, SQL*loader, ...) and occasionally even tedious to read. However some tips are really good and worth some patient while reading. Even if you use particular technique on a daily basis, I'm sure, you'll get some new ideas about different possibilities in data warehouse implementation.

Next four chapters are covering administration of data warehouse, performance tuning, parallel execution and parallel server. As DBA I liked these chapters the most. Especially chapter on tuning is well presented with just enough detail that you can start exploring the wonders of Oracle RDBMS.

Last two chapters are about distributing the Oracle data warehouse (replication, database links,...) and analytical processing (new analytical functions and brief discussion on Discoverer and OLAP with Oracle Express - the product that will soon die).

What about the shortcomings of the book? First, you should visit publisher web site and pick errata for the book (btw, it's excellent). In addition to common typos found in most technical books, some sentences doesn't make sense to me, or contradict with some other part of the book. Next, some pictures are over simplistic and as such unnecessary or hard to understand. In general I like the way authors compared features of different version of Oracle through out the book, however sometimes it's obvious that their focus is not Oracle8i, but previous version of Oracle (for example, it's OK to discuss how to set up SORT_DIRECT_WRITES, but only with the reminder to the reader that this parameter is obsolete in Oracle8i).

One last reminder, this is *not* all-in one book, it's about essentials and it should be used as roadmap to different Oracle8i features. There is no substitute for official Oracle manuals (you should at least read Oracle Data Warehousing Guide). If you're experienced Oracle DBA/developer, with several years of hands-on experience in data warehousing you'll probably be disappointed with technical details in this book. This is actually a feature of this book, because you already have all technical manuals, you don't need another one. What you probably don't have is 'essential' book like this one that will guide you on the way to build successful data warehouse.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, June 6, 2001

By	Garry King (Currently in Switzerland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am a veteran Oracle DW designer and tuning specialist. This is a great book - very easy to read, technically accurate, and comprehensive (an unusual combination!). I can say from experience that the emphasis is in the right places. The Oracle manuals tell you how to do things - this tells you what to do and why. I highly recommend it for any Oracle DBA involved in building a data warehouse.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Practical Book to Using Oracle*i for Data Warehousing, September 25, 2003

By	Srihari Mailvaganam (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The heart of data warehousing is the database - Oracle, despite the bugs, is one of the most practical databases for large data repositories.

I have designed and installed Oracle data warehouses on Unix (and lately Linux) since the early nineties. The secret to a fulfilling relationship with an Oracle database set-up is knowing which stable Oracle release to use and the suitability with the operating platform.

Essential Oracle 8i Data Warehousing is focused on giving readers an objective understanding of using Oracle for implementing data warehousing repositories.

This book is better suited to technical users, who already have some understanding of Oracle, about to embark on the data warehousing process. This is not a book that is heavy on the side of data warehousing design nor dimensional modeling. There are other books that serve these subject areas well.

Please let me know if you have found this review helpful.