Book description
Data warehousing is one of the hottest business topics, and there’s more to understanding data warehousing technologies than you might think. Find out the basics of data warehousing and how it facilitates data mining and business intelligence with Data Warehousing For Dummies, 2nd Edition.
Data is probably your company’s most important asset, so your data warehouse should serve your needs. The fully updated Second Edition of Data Warehousing For Dummies helps you understand, develop, implement, and use data warehouses, and offers a sneak peek into their future. You’ll learn to:
Analyze top-down and bottom-up data warehouse designs
Understand the structure and technologies of data warehouses, operational data stores, and data marts
Choose your project team and apply best development practices to your data warehousing projects
Implement a data warehouse, step by step, and involve end-users in the process
Review and upgrade existing data storage to make it serve your needs
Comprehend OLAP, column-wise databases, hardware assisted databases, and middleware
Use data mining intelligently and find what you need
Make informed choices about consultants and data warehousing products
Data Warehousing For Dummies, 2nd Edition also shows you how to involve users in the testing process and gain valuable feedback, what it takes to successfully manage a data warehouse project, and how to tell if your project is on track. You’ll find it’s the most useful source of data on the topic!
Table of contents
- Copyright
- About The Author
- Author's Acknowledgments
- Publisher's Acknowledgments
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Introduction
- Why I Wrote This Book
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How to Use This Book
- Part I: The Data Warehouse: Home for Your Data Assets
- Part II: Data Warehousing Technology
- Part III: Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing
- Part IV: Data Warehousing Projects: How to Do Them Right
- Part V: Data Warehousing: The Big Picture
- Part VI: Data Warehousing in the Not-Too-Distant Future
- Part VII: The Part of Tens
- Icons Used in This Book
- About the Product References in This Book
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I. The Data Warehouse: Home for Your Data Assets
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1. What's in a Data Warehouse?
- 1.1. The Data Warehouse: A Place for Your Data Assets
- 1.2. Data Warehousing: A Working Definition
- 1.3. A Brief History of Data Warehousing
- 1.4. Is a Bigger Data Warehouse a Better Data Warehouse?
- 1.5. Realizing That a Data Warehouse (Usually) Has a Historical Perspective
- 1.6. It's Data Warehouse, Not Data Dump
- 2. What Should You Expect from Your Data Warehouse?
- 3. Have It Your Way: The Structure of a Data Warehouse
- 4. Data Marts: Your Retail Data Outlet
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1. What's in a Data Warehouse?
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II. Data Warehousing Technology
- 5. Relational Databases and Data Warehousing
- 6. Specialty Databases and Data Warehousing
- 7. Stuck in the Middle with You: Data Warehousing Middleware
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III. Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing
- 8. An Intelligent Look at Business Intelligence
- 9. Simple Database Querying and Reporting
- 10. Business Analysis (OLAP)
- 11. Data Mining: Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to Mine We Go
- 12. Dashboards and Scorecards
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IV. Data Warehousing Projects: How to Do Them Right
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13. Data Warehousing and Other IT Projects: The Same but Different
- 13.1. Why a Data Warehousing Project Is (Almost) Like Any Other Development Project
- 13.2. How to Apply Your Company's Best Development Practices to Your Project
- 13.3. How to Handle the Uniqueness of Data Warehousing
- 13.4. Why Your Data Warehousing Project Must Have Top-Level Buy-In
- 13.5. How Do I Conduct a Large, Enterprise-Scale Data Warehousing Initiative?
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14. Building a Winning Data Warehousing Project Team
- 14.1. Don't Make This Mistake!
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14.2. The Roles You Have to Fill on Your Project
- 14.2.1. Project manager
- 14.2.2. Technical leader
- 14.2.3. Chief architect
- 14.2.4. Business requirements analyst
- 14.2.5. Data modeler and conceptual/logical database designer
- 14.2.6. Database administrator and physical database designer
- 14.2.7. Front-end tools specialist and developer
- 14.2.8. Middleware specialist
- 14.2.9. Quality assurance (QA) specialist
- 14.2.10. Source data analyst
- 14.2.11. User community interaction manager
- 14.2.12. Technical executive sponsor
- 14.2.13. User community executive sponsor
- 14.3. And Now, the People
- 14.4. Organizational Operating Model
- 15. You Need What? When? — Capturing Requirements
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16. Analyzing Data Sources
- 16.1. Begin with Source Data Structures, but Don't Stop There
- 16.2. Identify What Data You Need to Analyze
- 16.3. Line Up the Help You'll Need
- 16.4. Techniques for Analyzing Data Sources and Their Content
- 16.5. Analyze What's Not There: Data Gap Analysis
- 16.6. Determine Mapping and Transformation Logic
- 17. Delivering the Goods
- 18. User Testing, Feedback, and Acceptance
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13. Data Warehousing and Other IT Projects: The Same but Different
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V. Data Warehousing: The Big Picture
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19. The Information Value Chain: Connecting Internal and External Data
- 19.1. Identifying Data You Need from Other People
- 19.2. Recognizing Why External Data Is Important
- 19.3. Viewing External Data from a User's Perspective
- 19.4. Determining What External Data You Really Need
- 19.5. Ensuring the Quality of Incoming External Data
- 19.6. Filtering and Reorganizing Data after It Arrives
- 19.7. Restocking Your External Data
- 19.8. Acquiring External Data
- 19.9. Maintaining Control over External Data
- 20. Data Warehousing Driving Quality and Integration
- 21. The View from the Executive Boardroom
- 22. Existing Sort-of Data Warehouses: Upgrade or Replace?
- 23. Surviving in the Computer Industry (and Handling Vendors)
- 24. Working with Data Warehousing Consultants
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19. The Information Value Chain: Connecting Internal and External Data
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VI. Data Warehousing in the Not-too-Distant Future
- 25. Expanding Your Data Warehouse with Unstructured Data
- 26. Agreeing to Disagree about Semantics
- 27. Collaborative Business Intelligence
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VII. The Part of Tens
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28. Ten Questions to Consider When You're Selecting User Tools
- 28.1. Do I Want a Smorgasbord or a Sit-Down Restaurant?
- 28.2. Can a User Stop a Runaway Query or Report?
- 28.3. How Does Performance Differ with Varying Amounts of Data?
- 28.4. Can Users Access Different Databases?
- 28.5. Can Data Definitions Be Easily Changed?
- 28.6. How Does the Tool Deploy?
- 28.7. How Does Performance Change if You Have a Large Number of Users?
- 28.8. What Online Help and Assistance Is Available, and How Good Is It?
- 28.9. Does the Tool Support Interfaces to Other Products?
- 28.10. What Happens When You Pull the Plug?
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29. Ten Secrets to Managing Your Project Successfully
- 29.1. Tell It Like It Is
- 29.2. Put the Right People in the Right Roles
- 29.3. Be a Tough but Fair Negotiator
- 29.4. Deal Carefully with Product Vendors
- 29.5. Watch the Project Plan
- 29.6. Don't Micromanage
- 29.7. Use a Project Wiki
- 29.8. Don't Overlook the Effect of Organizational Culture
- 29.9. Don't Forget about Deployment and Operations
- 29.10. Take a Breather Occasionally
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30. Ten Sources of Up-to-Date Information about Data Warehousing
- 30.1. The Data Warehousing Institute
- 30.2. The Data Warehousing Information Center
- 30.3. The OLAP Report
- 30.4. Intelligent Enterprise
- 30.5. b-eye Business Intelligence Network
- 30.6. Wikipedia
- 30.7. DMReview.com
- 30.8. BusinessIntelligence.com
- 30.9. Industry Analysts' Web Sites
- 30.10. Product Vendors' Web Sites
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31. Ten Mandatory Skills for a Data Warehousing Consultant
- 31.1. Broad Vision
- 31.2. Deep Technical Expertise in One or Two Areas
- 31.3. Communications Skills
- 31.4. The Ability to Analyze Data Sources
- 31.5. The Ability to Distinguish between Requirements and Wishes
- 31.6. Conflict-Resolution Skills
- 31.7. An Early-Warning System
- 31.8. General Systems and Application Development Knowledge
- 31.9. The Know-How to Find Up-to-Date Information
- 31.10. A Hype-Free Vocabulary
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32. Ten Signs of a Data Warehousing Project in Trouble
- 32.1. The Project's Scope Phase Ends with No General Consensus
- 32.2. The Mission Statement Gets Questioned after the Scope Phase Ends
- 32.3. Tools Are Selected without Adequate Research
- 32.4. People Get Pulled from Your Team for "Just a Few Days"
- 32.5. You're Overruled When You Attempt to Handle Scope Creep
- 32.6. Your Executive Sponsor Leaves the Company
- 32.7. You Overhear, "This Will Never Work, but I'm Not Saying Anything"
- 32.8. You Find a Major "Uh-Oh" in One of the Products You're Using
- 32.9. The IT Organization Responsible for Supporting the Project Pulls Its Support
- 32.10. Resignations Begin
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33. Ten Signs of a Successful Data Warehousing Project
- 33.1. The Executive Sponsor Says, "This Thing Works — It Really Works!"
- 33.2. You Receive a Flood of Suggested Enhancements and Additional Capabilities
- 33.3. User Group Meetings Are Almost Full
- 33.4. The User Base Keeps Growing and Growing and Growing
- 33.5. The Executive Sponsor Cheerfully Volunteers Your Company as a Reference Site
- 33.6. The Company CEO Asks, "How Can I Get One of Those Things?"
- 33.7. The Response to Your Next Funding Request Is, "Whatever You Need — It's Yours."
- 33.8. You Get Promoted — and So Do Some of Your Team Members
- 33.9. You Achieve Celebrity Status in the Company
- 33.10. You Get Your Picture on the Cover of the Rolling Stone
- 34. Ten Subject Areas to Cover with Product Vendors
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28. Ten Questions to Consider When You're Selecting User Tools
Product information
- Title: Data Warehousing For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
- Author(s):
- Release date: March 2009
- Publisher(s): For Dummies
- ISBN: 9780470407479
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