Adopting the latest technological and data related innovations has caused many organisations to realise they don’t have a firm grasp on their basic operational data. This is a problem that Logical Data Models are uniquely qualified to help them solve. The realisation of the need to define a Logical Data Model may be driven by any number of reasons including; trying to link Big Data Analytics to operational data, plunging into Digital Marketing, choosing the best SaaS solution, carrying out a core Data Migration, developing a Data Warehouse, enhancing Data Governance processes, or even just trying to get everyone to agree on their Product specifications! This book will provide you with the skills required to start to answer these and many similar types of questions. It is not written with a focus on IT development, so you don’t need a technical background to get the most from it. But for any professional working in an organisation’s data landscape, this book will provide the skills they need to define high quality and beneficial data models quickly and easily. It does this using a wealth of practical examples, tips and techniques, as well as providing checklists and templates. It is structured into three parts: The Foundations: What are the solid foundations necessary for building effective data models? The Tools: What Tools are required to enable you to specify clear, precise and accurate data model definitions? The Deliverables: What processes will you need to successfully define the models, what will they deliver, and how can we make them beneficial to the organisation? “In this data-rich era, it is even more critical for organisations to answer the question of what their data means and the value it can bring. Those who can, will gain a competitive advantage through their use of data to streamline their operations and energise their strategies. Core to revealing this meaning, is the data model that is now, more than ever, the lynchpin of success. The Data Model Toolkit provides the essential knowledge and skills that will ensure this success.” – Reem Zahran, Global IT Platform Director, TNS “We work with many enterprise customers to help them transform their technology and it always starts with data. The key is a clear definition of their data quality, completeness and governance. This book shows you step by step how to define and use Data Models as powerful tools to define an organisation’s data and maximise its business benefit.” – John Casserly, CEO, Xceed Group

The Multi-dimensional Data Modeling Toolkit represents over 15 years of hands-on experience developing multidimensional analytic applications for over a dozen companies in a variety of application areas. Written in a tutorial style, this book gives, in plain English, a step-by-step development of the defining principles of OLAP analysis through the lens of the programming language at the heart of Oracle's OLAP database option. You will find this book packed with examples, tricks and techniques, concrete illustrations of the programming elements needed to implement. The basics will all be there as well as advanced techniques that you can use to address the most demanding requirements. OLAP will be addressed as an analysis platform. You will learn how to make business intelligence applications smarter by upping the analytical octane. You will learn both the classic applications of OLAP analysis as well as more exotic approaches. You will learn where OLAP fits in among other analytical approaches such as statistics and data mining. So whether you are a developer wanting to learn Oracle's counterpart to Microsoft's MDX, or an analyst wanting to understand the quantitative possibilities of OLAP, The Multi-dimensional Data Modeling Toolkit will show you what you need to know to go from beginner to expert in the application of OLAP analytics with Oracle OLAP DML.

Updated new edition of Ralph Kimball's groundbreaking book on dimensional modeling for data warehousing and business intelligence! The first edition of Ralph Kimball's The Data Warehouse Toolkit introduced the industry to dimensional modeling, and now his books are considered the most authoritative guides in this space. This new third edition is a complete library of updated dimensional modeling techniques, the most comprehensive collection ever. It covers new and enhanced star schema dimensional modeling patterns, adds two new chapters on ETL techniques, includes new and expanded business matrices for 12 case studies, and more. Authored by Ralph Kimball and Margy Ross, known worldwide as educators, consultants, and influential thought leaders in data warehousing and business intelligence Begins with fundamental design recommendations and progresses through increasingly complex scenarios Presents unique modeling techniques for business applications such as inventory management, procurement, invoicing, accounting, customer relationship management, big data analytics, and more Draws real-world case studies from a variety of industries, including retail sales, financial services, telecommunications, education, health care, insurance, e-commerce, and more Design dimensional databases that are easy to understand and provide fast query response with The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling, 3rd Edition.

This old edition was published in 2002. The current and final edition of this book is The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling, 3rd Edition which was published in 2013 under ISBN: 9781118530801. The authors begin with fundamental design recommendations and gradually progress step-by-step through increasingly complex scenarios. Clear-cut guidelines for designing dimensional models are illustrated using real-world data warehouse case studies drawn from a variety of business application areas and industries, including: Retail sales and e-commerce Inventory management Procurement Order management Customer relationship management (CRM) Human resources management Accounting Financial services Telecommunications and utilities Education Transportation Health care and insurance By the end of the book, you will have mastered the full range of powerful techniques for designing dimensional databases that are easy to understand and provide fast query response. You will also learn how to create an architected framework that integrates the distributed data warehouse using standardized dimensions and facts.

A thorough update to the industry standard for designing, developing, and deploying data warehouse and business intelligence systems The world of data warehousing has changed remarkably since the first edition of The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit was published in 1998. In that time, the data warehouse industry has reached full maturity and acceptance, hardware and software have made staggering advances, and the techniques promoted in the premiere edition of this book have been adopted by nearly all data warehouse vendors and practitioners. In addition, the term "business intelligence" emerged to reflect the mission of the data warehouse: wrangling the data out of source systems, cleaning it, and delivering it to add value to the business. Ralph Kimball and his colleagues have refined the original set of Lifecycle methods and techniques based on their consulting and training experience. The authors understand first-hand that a data warehousing/business intelligence (DW/BI) system needs to change as fast as its surrounding organization evolves. To that end, they walk you through the detailed steps of designing, developing, and deploying a DW/BI system. You'll learn to create adaptable systems that deliver data and analyses to business users so they can make better business decisions.

Wouldn't it be great to understand all the data in your organisation? Just imagine being able to define, agree and manage information concepts that impact on business strategy? Then image that these information concepts can be linked to the physical database attributes that ultimately are used to create them. That's what this book is about. It focuses on the data model as the foundation for achieving this understanding. This book provides a framework for the enterprise data model, the business reasons behind it and the differences between conceptual, logical and physical data models. The question of how, and why, to use a data model artifact as part of the data governance toolkit for the whole enterprise is also addressed. This publication is not an in-depth manual on how to model data for a new database system or your next design project. It instead focuses at a level above these implementation projects and addresses the issues that organisations typical struggling with such as: * How do we provide a framework within which we can manage our data assets? * How do we develop applications that adhere to a set of data standards; without creating a nightmare of administration and governance that is both unwieldy and unusable? * How can we get business value from our enterprise data? Chapter headings are: * Chapter 1 - Introduction * Chapter 2 - Information and Data * Chapter 3 - Pillars of Value * Chapter 4 - An Overview of Data Modelling * Chapter 5 - Data Architecture * Chapter 6 - The Enterprise Data Model * Chapter 7 - Build the Model one Project at a Time * Chapter 8 - Master Data * Chapter 9 - Data Governance * Chapter 10 - The Enterprise Data Framework This 2nd edition revises the original text to add extra details around key areas such as the enterprise data model framework and the pillars of value. It also improves the quality of the original text.

Best practices and invaluable advice from world-renowned data warehouse experts In this book, leading data warehouse experts from the Kimball Group share best practices for using the upcoming “Business Intelligence release” of SQL Server, referred to as SQL Server 2008 R2. In this new edition, the authors explain how SQL Server 2008 R2 provides a collection of powerful new tools that extend the power of its BI toolset to Excel and SharePoint users and they show how to use SQL Server to build a successful data warehouse that supports the business intelligence requirements that are common to most organizations. Covering the complete suite of data warehousing and BI tools that are part of SQL Server 2008 R2, as well as Microsoft Office, the authors walk you through a full project lifecycle, including design, development, deployment and maintenance. Features more than 50 percent new and revised material that covers the rich new feature set of the SQL Server 2008 R2 release, as well as the Office 2010 release Includes brand new content that focuses on PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint, Master Data Services, and discusses updated capabilities of SQL Server Analysis, Integration, and Reporting Services Shares detailed case examples that clearly illustrate how to best apply the techniques described in the book The accompanying Web site contains all code samples as well as the sample database used throughout the case studies The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit, Second Edition provides you with the knowledge of how and when to use BI tools such as Analysis Services and Integration Services to accomplish your most essential data warehousing tasks.

Cowritten by Ralph Kimball, the world's leading data warehousing authority, whose previous books have sold more than 150,000 copies Delivers real-world solutions for the most time- and labor-intensive portion of data warehousing-data staging, or the extract, transform, load (ETL) process Delineates best practices for extracting data from scattered sources, removing redundant and inaccurate data, transforming the remaining data into correctly formatted data structures, and then loading the end product into the data warehouse Offers proven time-saving ETL techniques, comprehensive guidance on building dimensional structures, and crucial advice on ensuring data quality

Data Modeling Essentials, Third Edition, covers the basics of data modeling while focusing on developing a facility in techniques, rather than a simple familiarization with "the rules". In order to enable students to apply the basics of data modeling to real models, the book addresses the realities of developing systems in real-world situations by assessing the merits of a variety of possible solutions as well as using language and diagramming methods that represent industry practice. This revised edition has been given significantly expanded coverage and reorganized for greater reader comprehension even as it retains its distinctive hallmarks of readability and usefulness. Beginning with the basics, the book provides a thorough grounding in theory before guiding the reader through the various stages of applied data modeling and database design. Later chapters address advanced subjects, including business rules, data warehousing, enterprise-wide modeling and data management. It includes an entirely new section discussing the development of logical and physical modeling, along with new material describing a powerful technique for model verification. It also provides an excellent resource for additional lectures and exercises. This text is the ideal reference for data modelers, data architects, database designers, DBAs, and systems analysts, as well as undergraduate and graduate-level students looking for a real-world perspective. - Thorough coverage of the fundamentals and relevant theory - Recognition and support for the creative side of the process - Expanded coverage of applied data modeling includes new chapters on logical and physical database design - New material describing a powerful technique for model verification - Unique coverage of the practical and human aspects of modeling, such as working with business specialists, managing change, and resolving conflict

". . . one of the definitive books of our industry. If you take the time to read only one professional book, make it this book." -W. H. Inmon One of the most dramatic new developments in database design, the dimensional data warehouse is a powerful database model that.significantly enhances managers' ability to quickly analyze large, multidimensional data sets. Written by the leading proponent of this revolutionary new approach, this valuable book/CD toolkit outfits you with all the nuts-and-bolts information you need to design, build, manage, and use dimensional data warehouses for virtually any type of business application, as well as software for querying dimensional data warehouses. Employing many real-life case studies of data warehouses, Ralph Kimball provides clear-cut guidelines on how to model data and design data warehouses to support advanced multidimensional decision support systems. Beginning with the relatively simple example of a data warehouse for a grocery store, he progresses, step-by-step, through an increasingly complex array of business applications in retail, manufacturing, banking, insurance, subscriptions, and airline reservations. By the end of the book, you will have mastered the full range of powerful techniques for creating, controlling, and navigating dimensional business databases that are easy to understand and navigate. On the CD-ROM you'll find: * Software for querying dimensional data warehouses. * Working models of all the databases described in the book.