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

I found this to be one of the best technical books written - ever. When the authors demanded my full attention by advising in the Intro section that the book has to be read from beginning to end in a sequence, I was initially put off. But then once I got going, it was un-put-downable. I have another take on this book - if you are a data practitioner with formal technical training (aka database/programmer geek) and are contemplating an MBA or training on management skills, this book is your place to start. I understood the importance of an Invoice here faster than I have ever understood from a management tome or even an Idiot's Guide - if you are relatively smart, you can map the concept of "invoice" to other application domains/scenarios. You get a holistic view of how data is organized and how it is consumed - vertical industry wise, and importantly, how it is to be organized for easy consumption. I'd have been happier if the fact and dimension schemas were even more fully laid out - but then, that is asking for too much. That is what Kimball Institute is for! The authors viewpoints on dimensional modeling vis-a-vis ER modeling may appear dogmatic for folks coming from OLTP land - those of us who carry badge of honors for understanding 1-4 Normal Forms. But advances in computing seem to justify their exhortations for denormalized data representations, and further, they back up their dogma - if you will - with examples that clearly show the superiority of dimensional modeling for publishing data. All in all, truly classic stuff!

There are at least 3 excellent books from the Kimball Group in their data warehouse toolkit series. This one, "The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling", is extremely interesting and useful, especially because the various concepts are presented in the context of a widely varied series of specific business requirements being addressed by a data warehouse. The reader not only gains insights into dimensional modeling details, but has a great opportunity to learn and compare the different requirements and issues that relate to applications for retail sales, inventory, procurement, order management, CRM, accounting, HRM, financial services, telecommunications/utilities, transportation, education, health care, electronic commerce, and insurance. So the authors give us much more than a technical guide, and they provide the reader with meaningful, practical insights into multiple business application domains. One gets the impression that the examples in the text have been adapted from actual real-world projects, and the depth and breadth of those examples are the fundamental strength of this book, which is highly recommended.

I did not get chance to read it, but everybody says it the best source to learn Dimensional Modeling. I our project, the DBA is doing it.

This book delivers exactly what it says. Except that word "toolkit" in its title - you'd better think about this book being a single tool, not a whole toolkit. Ralph Kimball actually has a whole lot of books on data warehousing published, this is one of them, a tool in the toolkit. This one seems like a good starting point to the entire series, and it only shows a single facet - the dimensional modeling.

The book explains the basic principles of creating dimensions and fact tables in a data warehouse (assuming a relational star schema), and then dedicates a chapter per industry to show how those principles apply to sales, order management, CRM, accounting, human resources, financial services, telecoms, logistics, education, health care, e-commerce, insurance etc. Each one appears to be significantly different from the others.

There is a couple of teaser chapters starting with "we have that other book covering this, but will brief you out". Nice and makes you want to read the other books too.

The book also includes guidelines to the warehouse building process, in terms like "know your business sponsor", "talk to your users" and so on. Difficult to say what it has to do with dimensional modeling, perhaps it's included in all the books in the series.

There is no word on software, hardware, physical architecture, tuning or performance in this book. It is a textbook in dimensional modeling, period.

The book is written clearly, has a handful of simple and uniform diagrams and is easy to follow. It only leaves you wondering just how exactly large is the whole data warehouse area, how many pieces you need to collect yet.

Recommended.

Excelent book, it shows how to build a good data warehouse by using the best patterns. I recommend the book to you, it is not as boring as another books regarding this issue, in addition it is cheap.