Additional Information

This book includes most of the information you need to successfully build and deploy a basic DW/BI system using SQL Server 2005. In an effort to keep the book small enough to fit into a large backpack , we chose not to replicate tool instructions that could be easily found in SQL Server 2005 Books Online. Where appropriate, we provided search topics to assist in finding related materials. In several places, we recommend that you work through the tutorials that ship with SQL Server before you can expect to fully understand some technical material.

This book doesnt attempt to re-teach the fundamentals of data warehousing. We summarize many of the concepts and techniques found in the other volumes in the Kimball Data Warehouse Toolkit series rather than including all the details found in those books. We also provide references to key sections of those books as needed. Table 1 shows the core books in the Toolkit series, their major focus, and their primary audiences.

Table 1: The Core Kimball Data Warehouse Toolkit Titles

TITLE	SUBJECT	PRIMARY AUDIENCE
The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit	Implementation guide	Good overview for all project participants ; key tool for project managers, business analysts, and data modelers
The Data Warehouse Toolkit, Second Edition	Dimensional data modeling	Data modelers, business analysts, DBAs, ETL developers
The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit	ETL System architecture	ETL architects and developers

These books encapsulate the collective wisdom of the Kimball Group about data warehousing and business intelligence. We recommend that you add these books to your teams library.

Weve laced this book with tips, key concepts, sidebars, and chapter pointers to make it more usable and easily referenced. We draw attention to some of these with the following formats:

Reference 

Look for reference pointers to find other materials you can use to supplement your DW/BI library. This includes references to SQL Server Books Online, the Kimball Group Toolkit books, other books and articles, and online reference materials.

Note 

Notes provide some extra information on the topic under discussion, adding explanation or details to clarify the material.

Tip 

Tips offer shortcuts or hints that can make your work more productive.

Warning 

Warnings help you avoid potential dangers that might cost you time, data, or sanity .