Data Warehousing Books

Awareness of this book arose following my recent reading of a white paper on Data Vault data modeling by Dan Linstedt that a recent client of mine had suggested. And although I was not impressed with that white paper, what I found intriguing is that Lindstedt quotes Bill Inmon as saying that "the Data Vault is the optimal choice for modeling the EDW in the DW 2.0 framework." Thus the acquisition of this text by Inmon. Almost everyone vaguely familiar with this industry space is probably familiar with Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball. What is interesting is that Inmon, the "Father of Data Warehousing", is credited alongside two other individuals with writing this text. It is not transparent as to who actually wrote most of the content for "DW2.0", but what is quickly apparent is that most of the statements contained in the book are generalities, and the vast majority of the diagrams are deplorable, consisting mostly of inferior clip art that adds little to nothing to the discussion. Most of the material is presented in a theoretical manner with very little practical substance. This reviewer hesitates to even recommend this latest Inmon effort to client management. Even outside the domain of data warehousing, there seems to be something amiss with what the authors attempt to present. For example, chapter 6 consists of a 17-page discussion on "methodology and approach", and for the first 7 pages of this chapter, the authors discuss the spiral, waterfall, and iterative methodologies. Keeping in mind that there are various interpretations for each of these methodologies (see my reviews for "Agile & Iterative Development" by Larman and "Balancing Agility and Discipline" by Boehm and Turner, for example), the push of the authors to introduce spiral methodology as a "critical step toward success in second-generation data warehousing" is seemingly illogical. Despite all of this, however, what this text provides is as follows: (1) one of the first attempts to standardize data warehousing terminology in what is a very fragmented market segment, (2) explanation of high-level data warehousing concepts, and (3) suggestions on how to avoid some of the problems that have plagued enterprise data and how to manage the high influx of unstructured data that corporations are now creating. Keep in mind, however, that this book is tied into marketing "DW2.0" consulting and certification training, which may provide an explanation as to the vagueness of the material.

First of all, this book is not written with the DW novice in mind. Some of the chapters require a thorough understanding of DW theory and concepts.

Generally I found the book useful and I got some ideas that I will apply in one of my next projects. The biggest weakness of DW 2.0 is its lack in detail. In a lot of areas I found the book to be patchy and too high level. In my opinion DW 2.0 as presented in the book is not (yet) an elaborate data warehousing methodology.

What follows is a discussion of some of the more interesting concepts and chapters in the book.

(1) The different sectors of DW 2.0

To me it did not become fully clear what exactly the Interactive Sector is. Is it a cumulation of an enterprise's operational systems or is it a real time replication of these systems as an additional physical layer? A practical example really would have helped here. Personally I have my doubts if all the operational reporting requirements can be met by the Interactive Sector, e.g. how can a requirement that needs to query data from both the Interactive and Integrated Sector be met?

(2) Fluidity of technology sector

While this offers some interesting thoughts on how to shield the DW 2.0 from changes in business requirements and the operational source systems it only scratches on the surface. The idea as presented by the authors is to physically separate data that structurally does not change frequently (semantically stable date) from data that changes often (temporal data). From the book it does not become clear how this can be achieved. The only advice the authors give here is: "The answer is that semantically static and semantically temporal data should be physically separate in all database designs." (p.121). The authors mention Kalido as a software vendor that provides technology to separate the two different sets of data. From this it seems that they refer to generic data modelling to achieve this separation. However, this does not become clear at all. In my opinion the most frustrating chapter in the book. It raises very interesting questions that it does not answer.


(3) Methodology

Very good summary chapter on why agile and iterative methodologies also advocated by other practicioners in the industry work best for data warehouse projects. If you need to justify an agile approach to your data warehouse project this is a good chapter to refer to.

(4) Performance

Some good ideas on how to improve performance of data warehouses. What I found particularly useful is the concept of farmers and explorers as users of the warehouse that have different analytical needs.

(5) Cost justification

A chapter you can refer to if you need to justify your data warehouse project to management.

(6) Unstructered data

In my opinion this is the best chapter in the book. Before reading the book I had never thought much about unstructured data and how it can be integrated with structured data in the warehouse. The book gives you a good overview on how this might be achieved. However, once again it just scratches at the surface of the problem. It is probably a good idea to refer to Inmon's other book on unstructured data to get more detail.

Overall the book gives a good overview on the concepts of DW 2.0 and what will be required for the next generation of DW 2.0. However, in all chapters it lacks detail and practical examples. The discussion remains somewhat abstract, theoretical, and scientific. It would be nice to see a case study of a data warehouse built on the principles of DW 2.0. Also the quality of graphics and images are of poor quality and let the book down.

One area the authors get wrong is how they define ELT (in opposition to ETL). In contrast to what the authors say ELT does not load the data into the data warehouse and only then applies transformations to it. In ELT tools (such as Oracle Data Integrator or Oracle Warehouse Builder) transformations take place on the data warehouse server(s) using the data warehouse's database engine (using SQL or some dialect). However, transformations happen while the data is loaded or before (staging area on data warehouse servers). This is in contrast to traditional ETL where transformations take place on a separate server ETL server using Java or some other procedural language.

Those who are interested in building their knowledge of how to exploit their data warehousing resources, and collaborating with the business stakeholders, Inmon provides some great examples and great suggetions for design.

Obviously, you have to respect Bill Inmon's work in the Data Warehouse industry but I don't consider this book one of his better efforts. It's rather short at 250 pages and there is plenty of filler from the oversize glossary to weak chapters on data mining and the politics of exploration processing. There are also a couple of chapters(Corporate Information Factory description, Chain of Beneficence)devoted to topics that have been published in many places and can be easily found, for free, on the net. The core Exploration Warehouse technology chapters are a bit dated as this technology is rapidly expanding. Overall, a very valuable technology but most of the same information can be found somewhere else on the Web.

This book is very well organized and presents some great troubleshooting with examples along with syntax, commands and some many solid tricks and hints. I find it very helpful on a daily basis.

This book is pretty useless for a Teradata developer. It was basically the same as the Teradata documentation, just not as detailed. For beginners, the Tera-Tom on Teradata Basics is much better for a good high-level overview.

could you display some thing is about the phases involved in the creation of a data warehourse in this book?

This book is sweet and sour. It is good because it covers many different topics by some very knowledgable authors. But on the other hand, I found it difficult to read. With so many authors, the pace kept changing along with the style. Get this book if you have time to rehash. Otherwise pass over this one for "Data Warehouse Project Managment".

This could have been a good book if it were binded properly. All the leaves in the book are flying out few days after receipt and usage.

I am even contemplating returning it to you.

Thank you.

Emmanuel Badasu

Several years ago I got some help from this book to understand the basic principles of BW. This book is currently very outdated. The outrageous part is that the publisher reprinted the book recently with a 50% increase in the price, without updating the content at all.
If the authors publish a new edition, I'll be the first one to buy it.

Man, you can't keep selling the same book forever and keep everyone satisfied. I liked the way they presented the idea of BW, but it was seriously outdated. They should make enhancements and upgrades atleast one in two years

Anybody buying this book to learn some BW will be very much disappointed. Like the way the book is organised but older stuff. I can't beleive the greedy publiser is still selling this book. Not only they should stop selling, also should recall the book.

Disappointing in both structure and content; surprising thing, cosidering that the authors come with substantial credentials.

It is more of an end-user self-training package targeting the individuals that want to memorize and troubleshoot their way through the setup rather that providing a step-by-step business case driven scenario.

Unfortunately the release that make the subject of the book is already obsolete (well, this is not authors' fault).

The CD-ROM attached to it is of little if any use;

This book wastes quite a few things, very respected names like Finkelstein, Aiken and Zachman and lots of pages. It will waste your time as well. This book is a vague attempt on connecting XML with information engineering.

I'm a programmer and sometime-architect. I was looking for a book that identified (1) Why XML is useful and (2) How to use it. This book is over 500 pages long; about 20 pages of it have XML on them. If you're a practical person looking to get up to speed quickly, look elsewhere.

Good description of Data Warehousing techniques, etc but NOREAL HELP for XML Portal builders. I may be a little critical since Irun a PS organization that does this but really, there isn't much meat here around anything new. The title is only a clever marketing ploy and the writers admit as much in the intro. Pass it on by unless you need to understand DataWarehousing in General and are trying to sneak it by your manager as an "XML book".

Better for Data Warehousers is the Data Warehouse Life Cycle Toolkit by Kimball.

This book assumes you already are knowledgable in most areas. Wanted to know more about XML and portals. Actually, found nothing useful. Very little about XML. Examples and guide are for a portal someone else already built. I don't want someone else's portal.

The first 300 pages of this book read more like a systems design book from the late '80's than an up-to-date treatise on portals and the use of XML.
The rest of the book jumps glosses over XML, reengineering tecnnology, "Organizational Quality Initiatives", and the all important final chapter, " The Central Role of Enterprise Portals" starts by fawning over a Microsoft XML web site that illustrates how you can convert some of your old applications and spends 15 of the 50 pages in the chapter giving a poor description of those 9 'scenarios'.
Unless your data systems are mired in the late '80s information architecture described in this book, you'd be best served by a more modern approach to data presentation and distribution.

I found this book to be helpful in understanding how to utilize multidimensional database design. It was nice to see that Microsoft has some affordable alternatives one can turn to in the data mining and data warehousing market. Once again WROX has produced a helpful product for professionals in the computer industry.

Been a Wrox fan for some time. This is the worst book their team has produced. The material is cursory at best and totally theoretical. Very few practical examples. Never thought I would point to an MSPress Step-by-Step book, however it is far superior to this junk.

I bought Sakhrs version of this book for SQL Server 7. This is not just an upgrade but a look at the new functionlity found within SQL Server 2000.

This book is a dream if you are involved within Analysis and even looking at the new DTS Analysis functions has helped me.

Comparing this with other books, by far this is the one that is well written and doesnt just come out with the obvious.

Avoid this book. It was written by ten different people and it shows in the text - overlapping material and total lack of flow make it impossible to get a grasp on Analysis Services. It appears that many of the authors have difficulty understanding and adequately explaining the concepts themselves.

The Analysis Services tutorials included with SQL Server and Books Online are much more informative - with deliberate, well documented hands-on tutorials.

This is NOT the reference you are looking for.

I am a professor in computer security. I found the book to be an excellent way to get an introduction to applying data mining techniques to problems such as intrusion detection. People in the security field will probably find the 2nd and 3rd chapters to be introductory in nature and something they largely know. However, the book picks up pace from Chapter 4 onwards. Chapters 4-7 contain a wealth of information on some key research projects that are investigating the applicability of data mining and data warehousing techniques to cyber-security. While information on these projects can be found elsewhere as well, this book does a nice job of bringing them together in one collection. The book should serve as an excellent starting reference for researchers and practitioners who are interested in investigating the use of data mining techniques to cyber-security.

I have been trying to research and implement a Network Intrusion Detection System using Data mining techniques as part of my school project. Last week while browsing through some of the data mining books in a book store, I came across this book. After going through the book I found out that it's just a collection of information that is freely available over the web and some IEEE papers. So, I would not reccommend this book to any folks who are interested in knowing about data mining techniques for cyber security.

contains only about the managarial aspects of the OLAP. But contains very little about managing the maintaining materialized views. Must have contained more about the information about the procedures in managing datawarehouses and also about the recent technical research problems. Anyway not a bad book.

There are at most 30 pages worth remembering, but you have to read through 378 to find them.