I found this to be one of the best technical books written - ever. When the authors demanded my full attention by advising in the Intro section that the book has to be read from beginning to end in a sequence, I was initially put off. But then once I got going, it was un-put-downable. I have another take on this book - if you are a data practitioner with formal technical training (aka database/programmer geek) and are contemplating an MBA or training on management skills, this book is your place to start. I understood the importance of an Invoice here faster than I have ever understood from a management tome or even an Idiot's Guide - if you are relatively smart, you can map the concept of "invoice" to other application domains/scenarios. You get a holistic view of how data is organized and how it is consumed - vertical industry wise, and importantly, how it is to be organized for easy consumption. I'd have been happier if the fact and dimension schemas were even more fully laid out - but then, that is asking for too much. That is what Kimball Institute is for! The authors viewpoints on dimensional modeling vis-a-vis ER modeling may appear dogmatic for folks coming from OLTP land - those of us who carry badge of honors for understanding 1-4 Normal Forms. But advances in computing seem to justify their exhortations for denormalized data representations, and further, they back up their dogma - if you will - with examples that clearly show the superiority of dimensional modeling for publishing data. All in all, truly classic stuff!

There are at least 3 excellent books from the Kimball Group in their data warehouse toolkit series. This one, "The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling", is extremely interesting and useful, especially because the various concepts are presented in the context of a widely varied series of specific business requirements being addressed by a data warehouse. The reader not only gains insights into dimensional modeling details, but has a great opportunity to learn and compare the different requirements and issues that relate to applications for retail sales, inventory, procurement, order management, CRM, accounting, HRM, financial services, telecommunications/utilities, transportation, education, health care, electronic commerce, and insurance. So the authors give us much more than a technical guide, and they provide the reader with meaningful, practical insights into multiple business application domains. One gets the impression that the examples in the text have been adapted from actual real-world projects, and the depth and breadth of those examples are the fundamental strength of this book, which is highly recommended.

I did not get chance to read it, but everybody says it the best source to learn Dimensional Modeling. I our project, the DBA is doing it.

This book delivers exactly what it says. Except that word "toolkit" in its title - you'd better think about this book being a single tool, not a whole toolkit. Ralph Kimball actually has a whole lot of books on data warehousing published, this is one of them, a tool in the toolkit. This one seems like a good starting point to the entire series, and it only shows a single facet - the dimensional modeling.

The book explains the basic principles of creating dimensions and fact tables in a data warehouse (assuming a relational star schema), and then dedicates a chapter per industry to show how those principles apply to sales, order management, CRM, accounting, human resources, financial services, telecoms, logistics, education, health care, e-commerce, insurance etc. Each one appears to be significantly different from the others.

There is a couple of teaser chapters starting with "we have that other book covering this, but will brief you out". Nice and makes you want to read the other books too.

The book also includes guidelines to the warehouse building process, in terms like "know your business sponsor", "talk to your users" and so on. Difficult to say what it has to do with dimensional modeling, perhaps it's included in all the books in the series.

There is no word on software, hardware, physical architecture, tuning or performance in this book. It is a textbook in dimensional modeling, period.

The book is written clearly, has a handful of simple and uniform diagrams and is easy to follow. It only leaves you wondering just how exactly large is the whole data warehouse area, how many pieces you need to collect yet.

Recommended.

This book delivers exactly what it says. Except that word "toolkit" in its title - you'd better think about this book being a single tool, not a whole toolkit. Ralph Kimball actually has a whole lot of books on data warehousing published, this is one of them, a tool in the toolkit. This one seems like a good starting point to the entire series, and it only shows a single facet - the dimensional modeling.

The book explains the basic principles of creating dimensions and fact tables in a data warehouse (assuming a relational star schema), and then dedicates a chapter per industry to show how those principles apply to sales, order management, CRM, accounting, human resources, financial services, telecoms, logistics, education, health care, e-commerce, insurance etc. Each one appears to be significantly different from the others.

There is a couple of teaser chapters starting with "we have that other book covering this, but will brief you out". Nice and makes you want to read the other books too.

The book also includes guidelines to the warehouse building process, in terms like "know your business sponsor", "talk to your users" and so on. Difficult to say what it has to do with dimensional modeling, perhaps it's included in all the books in the series.

There is no word on software, hardware, physical architecture, tuning or performance in this book. It is a textbook in dimensional modeling, period.

The book is written clearly, has a handful of simple and uniform diagrams and is easy to follow. It only leaves you wondering just how exactly large is the whole data warehouse area, how many pieces you need to collect yet.

Recommended.

Excelent book, it shows how to build a good data warehouse by using the best patterns. I recommend the book to you, it is not as boring as another books regarding this issue, in addition it is cheap.

This is a great book. Wish there was something like this for relational(3NF) modeling as well.

Raman Marwah.

Excelent book, it shows how to build a good data warehouse by using the best patterns. I recommend the book to you, it is not as boring as another books regarding this issue, in addition it is cheap.

whatever pioneer or genius he is in the DW industry, the book is pretty bad, i wouldn't recommend it at all. the way he tries to convey concepts, explain techniques....
very bad organization, not clear but confusing sometimes, and very poor logical flow... he tries to make a big deal out of DW, when in fact it's not such a fancy or intellect intensive subject. very simple concepts are even hard to understand. someone else would be able to write a book more powerful and straight to the point in 100 pages MAX, and be much more useful....
it sucks when leaders don't know how to express themselves, maybe he was looking forward to have readers learn enough in DW to get projects started but not be able to do squat, and get some business from consulting...

As someone new to OLAP, I found this book to be VERY helpful really getting a solid handle on OLAP. My company needed to understand and move forward on building a OLAP solution. This book helped my get a handle on what we needed to do, and a high level of how to go about it.

This is the first book I'd recommend to anyone interested in OLAP.

In my mind this book is defintely the most definitive guide to dimensional modeling. Although there are some chapters (the last two that deals with process and other issues, the biggest part of the book is solely about dimensional modeling. Yes the first chapter deals with what it is (in general), why we would like to use dimensional modeling and some myths and caveats. However, from chapter 2 through 12, the book is hand-on.

Chapters 2 - 5 is for me the most impressive chapters of the book as it takes several business processes that is common in many businesses and discuss the design of the star cshemas in great depth. However, nowhere in the book is any design upheld as a panacea -- everywhere the book discusses at great length the possible problems and the design decisions to be made. It thus emphasizes that there is no "one-size fits all" in dimensioanl modeling.

Chapters 6, 7 and 8 deals with CRM, Accounting and HR respectively, while chapters 9 - 14 deals with different industries and their peculiar problems. The industrues are: Telecomms and utilities, Transportation, Education, Healthcare and e-commerce. Each chapter introduces new design guidelines and new problem areas anbd their possible solutions. Chapter 15 deals with the Insurance industry and essentially serves as a nicesummary of the proposed techniques as most are emplyed in the Insurance case study.

If you do not have a fairly good understanding of dimensional modeling after reading this text I would be very surprised.

However, it is more than just a read to know about dimensional modeling. The way the case studies are handled and the problems identified and discussed also makes it a true reference book. I think evrybody involved in dimensional modeling should have one on his/her desk.

In my mind this book is defintely the most definitive guide to dimensional modeling. Although there are some chapters (the last two that deals with process and other issues, the biggest part of the book is solely about dimensional modeling. Yes the first chapter deals with what it is (in general), why we would like to use dimensional modeling and some myths and caveats. However, from chapter 2 through 12, the book is hand-on.

Chapters 2 - 5 is for me the most impressive chapters of the book as it takes several business processes that is common in many businesses and discuss the design of the star cshemas in great depth. However, nowhere in the book is any design upheld as a panacea -- everywhere the book discusses at great length the possible problems and the design decisions to be made. It thus emphasizes that there is no "one-size fits all" in dimensioanl modeling.

Chapters 6, 7 and 8 deals with CRM, Accounting and HR respectively, while chapters 9 - 14 deals with different industries and their peculiar problems. The industrues are: Telecomms and utilities, Transportation, Education, Healthcare and e-commerce. Each chapter introduces new design guidelines and new problem areas anbd their possible solutions. Chapter 15 deals with the Insurance industry and essentially serves as a nicesummary of the proposed techniques as most are emplyed in the Insurance case study.

If you do not have a fairly good understanding of dimensional modeling after reading this text I would be very surprised.

However, it is more than just a read to know about dimensional modeling. The way the case studies are handled and the problems identified and discussed also makes it a true reference book. I think evrybody involved in dimensional modeling should have one on his/her desk.

If you only have time to read one book about dwh, read this one. It gives beguinners a complete overview about the most important aspects (technologies and techniques) involved, for the advanced one this book a good reverece (especially in terms of data modelling).

His Lifecyle approach is still the standard in the industry for analytical systems.

I've been working now for several years in the industry and this book has helped me more than anything else, because Kimball shows you the true problems you usually face during implementing dss and provides practical and useful solutions.

I must say that this book is a real treasure. My datawarehouse skills are not very good but now I have a better idea how everything works.

The book is also full of good tips as it gives you an approach to many scenes (Inventory, Internet hits, etc).

This is a must have for new datawarehouse developers.

The content was exactly what I was looking for. Easy to read. Great examples. Clear concepts. A must.

Found this provided me with a good overview, very quickly, letting me jump right into a project. Plenty of information to read more slowly, and from cover to cover.

This book provides an important approach to data warehousing. This is a must read for business intelligence professionals.

Farid Mehovic
Data Warehousing Solution by EntrePro

The mandatory bible for any datawarehouse developer. Complete with examples and case studies, it will satisfy beginners as well as experienced professionals. I began with this.. and havent finished using it yet!

This book simply is the best data warehouse book in the market, and an absolute must-read if you are in Data Warehouse field. The best part about this book is that it's not hogged down with technical non-sense, and it's quite easy to read and understand. Highly recommended.

After six years of creating data warehouse applications, making a plethora of mistakes and learning stuff the hard way, I wish I had had this book at the start! Every other page offers a solution to some problem or other that I have had. In the project I am just starting I am facing new challenges and am finding help with them as well. The best part is how solutions I used in the past which were appropriate for those problems are contrasted with solutions for problems like the ones I am facing now. Almost as bad as solving a problem the wrong way (or overlooking it entirely) is reusing an old solution that does not fit the new problem. This book clearly spells out when each solution is appropriate. I can not speak too highly about how useful this book will be for you!

Data Warehousing is more of an art than a science - but then again what isn't?

There isn't a standard blueprint that can come close to solving most data issues. Data Warehousing (DW) involves constant tweaking and the goal of good DW project management is minimizing the associated operational cost.

I have been a fan of Ralph Kimball as he writes as a person who has been through many implementations. With Mr. Kimball there isn't a miracle cure being touted - stay away from publications that claim such a cure.

Mr. Kimball approached the subject with good advices and encourages the readers to watch out for the pitfalls and follow best-practices in design implementation. It is similar to working with a well experienced supervisor.

The core to successful DW implementations is - LISTENING. Listening to the users on their needs and gauging the software resources available at your disposal.

Trade-offs in design versus cost/performance are a must. You will never have all the resources you need to implement the DW of your dreams. And if you did, chances are very high that once the DW is ready for use the business cases have changed making the design redundant.

Mr. Kimball will help in passing these information and much more. It also goes in good technical detail for suggested modeling of data.

I hope this review is helpful, please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

I was undecided if I should buy this book after having read the first edition, but I'm happy I did.
The second edition updates many of the concepts contained in the first and includes some new chapters on hot topics like CRM and Telecommunications (which is the most important sector for dw at least here in Italy where I live).
I think that Kimball books are everything that's needed to design good, robust and flexible data warehouses, and this book maintains his high quality standards.

Excellent work. When I first saw it I thought it was mere rewrite with simple correction of the first edition that I had bought in 1996. Thankfully I still sit down with the second edition and I realized how much additional insight I would have missed had I not read the second edition. It is very well written, thought provoking and easy to follow and yet conveys many complex concepts.

Congratulations to Ralph and Margy.

This book is written with clarity and conciseness, traits so often missing from computer books. This is the third book on Warehousing I have read, and is the first that makes sense of it. I recommend it highly if you are embarking on a warehousing project.

If you want to understand data warehouse design either as user, architect or developer, you need to read this book cover to cover.

Things I like about this book:

* Coverage of all core principles in dimensional data modeling using examples. Ralph does not just lecture to you -- he shows you how to put it into practice

* Coverage of a vast variety of domains. This alone makes the book a must-read

* Recap of major principles at the end of the book to bring it all together

* Excellent writing -- Ralph does not treat you like a dummy; neither does he assume that you have an IQ north of 200

* When you purchase this book, you are in effect purchasing a sliver of the combined knowledge of both authors in the data warehousing field. Highly recommended

I implemented a data warehouse using some of these principles back in 1999. The project was a resounding success and is the most popular application in the financial services firm that I implemented it in. (Infact when I lost my job at an Internet company, they immediately offered me a job based on this implementation). The only sad part to the whole story is that we made a few mistakes in implementation that are now very difficult to correct because the data warehouse has become core to the business -- we have too many end-user applications riding on it!

This book does not cover the core dimensional topics.

Lot of unwanted topics like internet security etc has
simply made this book bulky.

Also the examples in Dimensional modeling is incomplete
living it up to the user to search other sources.

This book deserves merely a one sentence review.
"Simply awesome" . As one of my friends had to say,
"We depend on Ralph Kimball for our livelihood"!

This IS the book on Data warehousing. Follow this book
and you will never fail. I have had solutions to all
of my design issues from this one book.

A must to every IT professional's personal library,
not necessarily restricted to DW professionals

There are a lot of data warehousing books out there that try to answer the question: 'Why'? Why data warehouses are needed to help businesses make better decisions - why the OLTP systems that run the business can't do this - and sometimes even why businesses ought to invest in data warehouses. These books were terrifically useful to us years ago, when we needed help (and scholarly footnotes) in our data warehouse project proposals. This book is not one of those - it is all about:

How

How to actually design and build a repository that will deliver real value to real people. In this reviewer's opinion, Ralph Kimball's many contributions related to the 'how' of data warehousing stand alone.

An engineer wishing to jump-start his or her data warehouse education would need to read Ralph's Data Warehouse Toolkit first edition, his Data Webhouse Toolkit... a bunch of "Data Warehouse Designer" Intelligence Enterprise magazine articles... AND lurk on the Data Warehousing List Server...for a few years (all terrific resources - by the way) - in order to stockpile the knowledge that is crisply presented here.

No shortcuts taken by the authors that I can spot: all of the toughest dimensional design issues that I've tripped on - and that I can remember surfacing on in discussion groups over the past few years - are addressed in this significantly updated text. Not all of the solutions are 'pretty' - but it is clear that they thoughtfully address the problem. This approach, in my opinion, instills student confidence - and lets us know that we are getting sound instruction - not dogma.

The authors have been listening to and addressing the data warehouse community's 'pain' through periodicals and posts for years - but this book pulls these point solutions together very nicely. I learned a surprising number of really useful new techniques, and was genuinely enlightened by the 'Present Imperatives and Future Outlook' section.

As in the first edition, there is minimal philosophical lecturing, and zero religion. Instead, we get generous helpings of real-world case studies - aptly applied to progressively more advanced series of design concepts.

This style absolutely works for me. And I suspect that engineering mindsets typical of the folks that build these things will likely agree. In short, the Data Warehouse Toolkit Second Edition will significantly lighten the load of books that I carry between data warehouse engagements.

Jim Stagnitto
Llumino, Inc.
www.llumino.com

Listen Software Solutions: Kimball is considered by many to be the father of data warehousing. I learned how to set up an dimension and fact table from this book. This was cool and very different. I had a complete set of Oracle data warehousing books, but this book was the beginning. I've read many books on data warehousing that reference Kimball. I spent alot of time thinking about SQL pivots, group by. In fact, I wrote a simple OLAP tool that allow search through the dimension into the fact table. Kimball explains the purpose of data warehousing. He also helps one realize the planning necessary to manage a data warehouse. One thing is clear, data warehousing is important and companies are using them. One significant point he makes in the book is that relational databases were intended to make data retrieval simple. Wow, what happen? The most complex code I've ever written was for report, hugh SQL statements with numerous joins spanning numerous tables, functions, and subqueries. Additionally the book covers advanced topics like data marts, cubes, and snowflakes are described and illustrated effectively in the book. I enthusatically recommend this book. Data Warehousing is the next revolution in information processing. It was very exciting to see concept become reality, a 3-Dimensional look at your data. Most of my work was using Oracle and Oracle Discover. However, I did build a few cubes using Microsoft OLAP tools. This is the book to buy.