Clickstream Data Warehousing (Paperback)

~ Mark Sweiger (Author), Mark R. Madsen (Author), Jimmy Langston (Author), Howard Lombard (Author) "No matter what kind of e-business you operate, one thing is clear: information systems dominate the enterprise..." (more)
Key Phrases: clickstream warehouse, activity fact table, clickstream processing, Host Geography, Referrer Geography, Common Log Format (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The first, step-by-step guide to building Web-enabled data warehouses
The Web can be an incredibly rich source of customer data, and right now companies across industry sectors are hustling to get up and running with data warehouses capable of capturing the clickstream data from their Web sites. This allows companies to track exactly where a customer is going, or "clicking to," on their site in order to gain meaningful information about that customer's preferences. Following Ralph Kimball's The Data Webhouse Toolkit (0-471-37680-9) where he provides the blueprint, Clickstream Data Warehousing fills developers in on all the technical details that go into building a Web-enabled data warehouse. The authors review all key architectural and design issues that developers need to masterfully build a Webhouse using examples to illustrate key points.
Companion Web site features code examples from the book and links to related Web sites.

From the Back Cover

"Clickstream Data Warehousing is a great read for the serious data warehouse designer grappling with clickstream data. With a clear style, the authors explain the intricacies of this important source of customer behavior data. They combine engineering knowledge of the clickstream with state-of-the-art dimensional data warehouse design techniques to produce a very useful book."
–Ralph Kimball, author of The Data Warehouse Toolkit and The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit

The Web is an incredibly rich source of business intelligence, and many enterprises are scrambling to build data warehouses that capture the knowledge contained in the clickstream data from their Web sites. By analyzing the user behavior patterns contained in these clickstream data warehouses, savvy businesses can expand their markets, improve customer relationships, reduce costs, streamline operations, strengthen their Web sites, and hone their business strategies. Whether you come from an e-business, Web architecture, or data warehouse background, this book gives you the integrated perspective necessary to create a successful clickstream data warehouse.

The first part of the book explains everything you need to know about the Web technology and IT infrastructure required to build a clickstream data warehouse. The second part of the book walks you through the process of designing and implementing a clickstream data warehouse, including:

• Planning, staffing, and managing the project
• Designing your clickstream data warehouse schema using the innovative meta-schema design template
• Picking the appropriate data warehouse software and storage subsystems to support your click-stream data warehouse
• Building the extract, transformation, and load (ETL) mechanism
• Delivering data to end users for analysis

The companion Web site features additional reference material, an interactive question and answer forum, additional articles and information on data warehousing topics, and links to related Web sites.

Wiley Computer Publishing
Timely. Practical. Reliable.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (January 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471083771
• ISBN-13: 978-0471083771
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #797,834 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #78 in

  Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Web Browsers

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First web DW book with serious technical detail, March 12, 2002

By A Customer

This is the first book on data warehousing and the web that actually goes into detail about web-based data. Instead of the obligatory chapter about fields in a server log and "what is a cookie", this book has several chapters of detailed explanation about web server data and the kinds of problems in it. One of the most useful sections describes the all the steps in the building of clickstream ETL. It also has a complete set of clickstream data models, although we already designed ours by the time I read the book.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good on the surface, April 15, 2002

By	Paul Bannister (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

The book goes into a fair amount of detail on certain topics, like server log files, and the generalized architecture of modern web sites. However, it doesn't really drill into any detail on the issues that may come up, such as cookieless browsers, ideas for cleansing dirty URLs, and methodology issues (when do you not count a pageview?).

As for the construction of the warehouse itself, it does provide some good generalized schemas that you can use for ideas, but nothing that you couldn't dream up yourself with a few days on a project.

A good overview, but no substitute for on-the-job learning.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete and Detailed, March 29, 2002

By A Customer

This book is an excellent treatment of architecture and detail for constructing a clickstream data warehouse. There are useful examples and explanations of clickstream data, data warehouse design, hardware requirements, performance recommendations, and the ET&L process. The authors seem to take a no fear attitude in revealing problems and suggesting solutions.