The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit

I took Kimball's class on the data warehouse lifecycle a few years ago. Recently as I was reviewing some of the problems our organization is wrestling with in building our data warehouse, I went back to the book which is now some 4 years old... but the fundamentals are all there and really they haven't changed much. This is the "bible" I use, and many DW/BI professionals would say the same. If you want to understand the ecosystem for a sound DW/BI solution, this is where you go. There are many other great books that add to it, but start here.

Kimball, et. al. really understand the Data Warehouse and the process to build your own. I read the first edition years ago, and it all came back in this book. This edition goes far beyond the original with a better understanding of the challenges businesses face. There are Notes throughout the book that provide valuable recommendations. If you take advantage of the Kimball website, you get tools that help you with building a Data Warehouse.

I had Ralph's first book, and first edition of the DW, and placed it in the kitchenette of my work place last year. This is a great book for BI or Star Schema Developers or Designer. A must have for them.

Very well written. I had to get 2nd Edition to match the classwork syllabus but I'm sure 3rd Edition is just as good. Our class lectures would cover the material pretty well but leave a lot of questions. I'd then read the matching chapters and it would walk me right thru it. One thing; a DW concepts in general seem "Ivory Tower" that wouldn't survive the real world, but then , I'm just learning this stuff so I could be wrong about that. Rather; I wonder how much they still apply. For example; he states it takes 6 months to build a "Data Mart", and add 6 months for each additional data source. So with 40 data marts in a typical enterprise, we're talking 10 years! 20 years if there are 2 data sources in the enterprise. That simply doesn't add up. Somehow I think the industry would have to move quicker than that, but at least he lays out the methods.

This book is the bible for many IT professionals involved in Data Warehouse management or IT project management. This information is as current and good today as is was when the first edition was written in 2008. That's says a lot for a field that is constantly being updated due to technology. The basics still matter. This and Ralph Kimball's other books should be on every IT professional's desk.

A VERY good book on data warehousing. It is quite a heavy read, it is stated to have cca. 500 pages but on my Kindle DX it looked more like 1500 pages. It took me a while to get through it and I read it from cover to cover but it is definitely worth it. The writing style of the authors is quite accessible so you would learn a lot even without much previous experience in this domain.

The Kimball Group provides such valuable insights into the design and construction of data warehouses. I found this book to be very useful in learning about the data warehouse development lifecycle. That being said, I'm very disappointed in the "Kindle" version of this book. The original book apparently included many footnotes that provided useful/detailed information about the subject matter. Unfortunately, the separation between text and footnote has been lost in the Kindle version. You will be reading along, and in the middle of the sentence a full-paragraph footnote will be embedded directly in the main text, immediately after the footnoted word. When the footnote ends, the Kindle edition picks right back up where it left off in the middle of the original sentence. Since the footnotes can be several sentences long, and since several footnotes can appear in a single paragraph of the main text, there are times it took me over five minutes to make sense of a single paragraph of text. It may be difficult to appreciate how frustrating this can be, until you have experienced it firsthand. Here is an example of how the first two sentences of the previous paragraph of my review might read, if footnotes were embedded in the same manner as this Kindle Edition: "That being said, I'm very disappointed to be depressed or discouraged by the failure of one's hopes or expectations. in the "Kindle" The Kindle is the world's best selling e-reader. At less than 6 ounces, it is lighter than a paperback, but can hold over 1,000 books. The specially designed screen can be read in direct sunlight. Visit amazon dot com to read about the many Kindle products that are available version of this book. The original book A written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers. In modern digital content delivery, books may be delivered in various electronically delivered media in the absence of printed paper apparently included many footnotes explanatory or documenting notes or comments at the bottom of a page, referring to a specific part of the text on the page that provided useful/detailed information knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.; factual data. For example, "His wealth of general information is amazing" about the subject matter. I would give the original book five stars, but after several chapters of maddeningly embedded footnotes, I was driven to come back and leave this review. I can only hope that someone at Amazon and/or Wiley Publishing will be paying attention.

I think the price is kinda cheap for me and good to use. If I by the new book from the book store in my university. I guess it will be like $100.

Das Buch deckt alles von der Anforderungsaufnahme (mit Musterfragebögen auf der beiliegenden CD) über Grundzüge der Datenmodellierung, der physikalischen Umsetzung bis eben zur Notwendigkeit der Aussortierung von Daten ab - eben den kompletten Lebenszyklus eines DWH. In meinem Unternehmen erhält jeder neue BI-Berater eine persönliche Ausgabe davon.

Used product in great condition. I could not find it anywhere but here

I have been in the BI field for quite sometime and found this book exceedingly helpful during my initial days - I thumb it time to time even now and it seems more relevant than ever. Over so many years I encountered the scenarios laid down in this book and only a few of them were technical. To understand that a DW work begins long before tables and ETL design is something this books captures very effeciently and even guides on how to progress. This toolkit is comprehensive and quite simple to understand, though a prior practical exposure wouldn't hurt. Of course, it does not meet all the practical realities of BI needs; at times delivery timeline pressures, lack of funds etc lead to an approach that is a mix of both worlds - Inmon and Kimball. However, given the right circumstances, for me, the latter stands out unquestionably. This is a must read for anyone aspiring to work professionally in the business intelligence/data warehousing domain.

The best book on how to implement a successful DW project. Full of real example and best practice. For beginners but also for experts.

Good textbook