Preface

As engineers , we in the Kimball Group want to build things that work. We are fascinated with the process of building a data warehouse as well as how the end users get value from a data warehouse and the resulting BI systems. At the same time, we are appalled by the difficulty of the design task. For more than twenty years , as we have been constructing data warehouses, we have looked for ways to simplify and compartmentalize the design process. When we have seen the same design pattern repeatedly, we have given the technique a name and tried to explain it in a clear way. This collection of named design techniques is called the Kimball Method. This book is a good introduction to these techniques.

The development of the Kimball Method has gathered significant momentum. In the past ten years, we have trained more than 10,000 data warehouse designers and sold more than 200,000 books, all explaining the Kimball Method. More recently, we have seen a significant adoption of the Kimball Method by the leading technology vendors in the data warehouse space. As you read this book, keep your radar active for Microsoft features in the SQL Server 2005 family of products with names like the Slowly Changing Dimension wizard. The dimensional approach we espouse has become a dominant theme in the leading industry tool sets.

Even armed with the Kimball Method, the task of building a data warehouse and the dependent BI systems requires the thoughtful exercise of perspective and judgment. Although this book may superficially resemble a dozen or more similarly thick books on Microsoft SQL Server 2005, it is very different. This is a true judgment book, not a how-to book. In writing this book, Joy and Warren have applied their unique perspectives both as very experienced data warehouse architects and as former Microsoft employees who helped bring SQL Server 2005 to the marketplace .

I hope you will appreciate the very measured and thoughtful approach Joy and Warren have taken. When a subject is just plain complicated, they pull no punches. In a few places, when Microsoft could have made a feature simpler, they say that in so many words. But mostly, the book tries very hard to visualize what you, the data warehouse designer, should be thinking about at each stage of using SQL Server 2005. I think Joy and Warren have succeeded in combining higher-level design judgment with a lot of useful comments about the tool details. I am proud to have played a role in contributing to the Kimball Method sections of this book.

Ralph Kimball



Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit. With SQL Server 2005 and the Microsoft Business Intelligence Toolset
The MicrosoftВ Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL ServerВ 2005 and the MicrosoftВ Business Intelligence Toolset
ISBN: B000YIVXC2
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 125

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