Dennis,
I have on my desk, all in varying stages of being read:
Inmon's book Building the Data Warehouse (very understandable)
Kimball's articles from his site and from the Intelligententerprise.com
site (somewhat understandable, I think you need a base from which to
read his articles). His books are on order and should arrive today
Tim Gorman's book Essential Oracle8i Data Warehousing (this I haven't
started, as Tim tells me to read it AFTER I have a basic understanding
of data warehousing)
The Oracle8i Data Warehousing documentation (actually pretty readable
and understandable)
Ya think I might be over-researching this stuff and panicking a bit?
Rachel
- DENNIS WILLIAMS <DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM> wrote:
> Ian,
>
> - In the beginning was the data warehouse and yeah it was good. It
> would
> solve all corporate problems and would encompass all corporate data
> so all
> corporate minions would see the same data.
> - But yeah it took so long to create the corporate data warehouse
> that
> management despaired and canceled the project. Or by the time the
> monster
> data warehouse came blinking and straining into the daylight all the
> users
> said that the company had evolved in the meanwhile and the warehouse
> was
> obsolete.
> - So data warehouses gained a bad rep from corporate managers and
> yeah
> none would fain to propose the conception of a data warehouse for
> fear of
> castigation.
> - Then some marketing interns bribed a DBA to send them data
> weekly. And
> they stored this data in a database and lo, their superiors were
> impressed.
> - Everyone was in awe of the marketing database, but none dared
> tarnish it
> by speaking the name which shall not be mentioned, so it was
> christened a
> "data mart".
> - And lo, the data marts multiplied and were fruitful. And the DBA
> cursed
> the day she was weak and did give data to the marketing interns.
> - Then another prophet did arise and did challenge the prophet
> Kimball.
> His name was Inmon. And he did claim to be the progenitor of data
> warehouses. And therefore all should do data warehousing his way and
> use his
> terms.
> - And great confusion arose over the land. And many debates ensued,
> including some face to face between Inmon and Kimball. And terms such
> as
> Operational Data Store (ODS) were bandied about.
> - And some said that queries against the ODS were acceptable and
> others
> deemed them forbidden. And some said that if it looks like a data
> warehouse
> and smells like a data warehouse it verily indeed is a data
> warehouse.
> - And consultants warred against consultants and did call the other
> consultants ignoramuses in front of management such that nobody knew
> what
> anybody was talking about.
> - And the DBAs said that creating a data warehouse or data mart was
> not
> nearly as hard as figuring out what to call it.
>
> The moral of the story is to figure out what you need to do and be
> aware
> that different authors use the same terms for different purposes and
> coin
> their own terms. Personally, I have understood everything that
> Kimball has
> written and have never been able to read one of Inmon's articles to
> the end.
> But maybe that is just me.
> Dennis Williams
> DBA
> Lifetouch, Inc.
> dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 2:38 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Outdated?
>
>
> Ian,
>
> Good question. I think that I've seen more recenct references in
> articles
> that state the current thinking of DW/DM. I'm sure that I've seen
> Inmon
> refer to them that way, or maybe it was Richard Winter?
>
> Anyway, I guess that part is a bit dated. There is so much good
> information
> in that book though, that it's still worth its weight in gold. You
> won't
> find too many
> publications for $60 that will take you step by step through building
> an
> entire
> data warehouse, including the infrastructure.
>
> Jared
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "MacGregor, Ian A." <ian_at_SLAC.Stanford.EDU>
> Sent by: root_at_fatcity.com
> 05/21/2002 05:48 PM
> Please respond to ORACLE-L
>
>
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> cc:
> Subject: RE: Data Warehouse experts, a simple question
> for
> you| Outdated?
>
>
> I am new to his books, three chapters in. The first release of the
> "Data
> Warehouse Toolkit" defines a data warehouse much as a data mart is
> today.
> Today we think of a data warehouse as having a highly normalized
> structure which stores information from various sources. We build
> data
> marts with structures optimized for querying; e.g., star schemas,
> from the
> warehouse. Kimball writes of the warehouse itself being based on a
> star
> schema.
>
> The term data warehouse has not been immutable over the years. It
> was
> probably defined exactly as he has done when the book was first
> written.
> Do his new books redefine "data warehouse"?
>
> Ian MacGregor
> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
> ian_at_SLAC.Stanford.edu
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 2:16 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> I second Jared's opinion. Ralph's books are clear and easy to read.
> This
> is
> the fundamentals of data warehousing.
> Dennis Williams
> DBA
> Lifetouch, Inc.
> dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 2:30 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> Yup, $60, and worth every penny.
>
> It may be 4 years old, but the information is still pertinent.
>
> Jared
>
>
>
>
>
> Joe Testa <jtesta_at_dmc-it.com>
> Sent by: root_at_fatcity.com
> 05/20/2002 05:53 PM
> Please respond to ORACLE-L
>
>
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> cc:
> Subject: Re: Data Warehouse experts, a simple question
> for
> you
>
>
> looks like published aug of 98 for that book?, like $60?
>
> joe
>
>
> Jared.Still_at_radisys.com wrote:
>
> >Joe,
> >
> >Add a generated PK to the time dimension. The PK is stored
> >as an FK in the fact table.
> >
> >That way you can select from the time dimension by year, day, qtr,
> >whatever,
> >and easily pick out the correct fact table rows.
> >
> >"The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit" includes a spreadsheet to
> generate
>
=== message truncated ===
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