Oracle-L: RE: Data warehouse book- need recommendation please

From: <Paula_Stankus_at_doh.state.fl.us>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 12:11:56 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.00597F62.20030513121156@fatcity.com>

Learn about
-dimensional modeling,
-star schemas and the importance of the "grain" in the FACT table.
-use of surrogate keys
-Nulls vs. not nulls
-customized versus purchased ETL processing
-common data... projects (See Kimball's "The Data Warehouse Lifcycle
Toolkit".
The list below is a good source for asking specific questions related to data warehousing. It is also very un-RDBMS engine-unbiased. I have seen postings on everything from Oracle to mysql to SQL*Server to DB2. They deal more with data architecture and modeling issues.

I follow the Kimball camp as well. I think Kimball simply is more practical and less theoretical. I also got a lot out of Gary Dodge and Tim Gorman's book on warehousing. I have their Oracle8 book marked in relation to:

Data Warehouse vs. Data Mart
Architectural Risks
Parameters important to data warehousing Sizing SGA
Sub Pools Tables
Metadata
Denorm. vs. Fact Table
Partitioning

Guys,

Do you have a new book for 9i including materialized views, external tables and table functions......

Tim, I will learn to pay more attention to author's of the books I read. Geez.

http://www.DataWarehousing.com is sponsored by DataMirror, a leading provider of real-time data integration and resiliency solutions. Please visit our sponsor today at http://www.datamirror.com to access data warehousing white papers and best practices.

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-----Original Message-----

Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 11:41 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Sami

The most important thing to understand is that the rules you've worked hard to learn as a DBA are different for data warehousing. You have stuff to unlearn. Like letting go of "fully normalized". Start by accessing Ralph Kimball's site http://www.ralphkimball.com <http://www.ralphkimball.com> He posts a lot of the basics of Data Warehousing on his site in form of magazine articles he's written over the years. In my opinion, Ralph is better at explaining the "big picture" of DW than anyone else. Once you get a good grasp of what DW is all about, actually creating a data warehouse mostly involves applying the DBA knowledge you already have. But fail to get the big picture and you will probably have a disaster on your hands.

Dennis Williams
DBA, 80%OCP, 100% DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com

-----Original Message-----

Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 5:14 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Hi All,

Could someone recommend a Data warehouse book for the person who has DBA background?

Also if possible please give me some resource link(docs/URL/etc) to start with.

Thanks in advance
Sami

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Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
INET: DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM

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