The Unified Star Schema An Agile And Resilient Approach To Data Warehouse And Analytics Design

Master the most agile and resilient design for building analytics applications: the Unified Star Schema (USS) approach. The USS has many benefits over traditional dimensional modeling. Witness the power of the USS as a single star schema that serves as a foundation for all present and future business requirements of your organization. Data warehouse legend Bill Inmon and business intelligence innovator, Francesco Puppini, explain step-by-step why the Unified Star Schema is the recommended approach for business intelligence designs today, and show through many examples how to build and use this new solution. This book contains two parts. Part I, Architecture, explains the benefits of data marts and data warehouses, covering how organizations progressed to their current state of analytics, and to the challenges that result from current business intelligence architectures. Chapter 1 covers the drivers behind and the characteristics of the data warehouse and data mart. Chapter 2 introduces dimensional modeling concepts, including fact tables, dimensions, star joins, and snowflakes. Chapter 3 recalls the evolution of the data mart. Chapter 4 explains Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL), and the value ETL brings to reporting. Chapter 5 explores the Integrated Data Mart Approach, and Chapter 6 explains how to monitor this environment. Chapter 7 describes the different types of metadata within the data warehouse environment. Chapter 8 progresses through the evolution to our current modern data warehouse environment. Part II, the Unified Star Schema, covers the Unified Star Schema (USS) approach and how it solves the challenges introduced in Part I. There are eight chapters within Part II: · Chapter 9, Introduction to the Unified Star Schema: Learn about its architecture and use cases, as well as how the USS approach differs from the traditional approach. · Chapter 10, Loss of Data: Learn about the loss of data and the USS Bridge. Understand that the USS approach does not create any join, and for this reason, it has no loss of data. · Chapter 11, The Fan Trap: Get introduced to the Oriented Data Model convention, and learn the dangers of a fan trap through an example. Differentiate join and association, and realize that an “in-memory association” is the preferred solution to the fan trap. · Chapter 12, The Chasm Trap: Become familiar with the Cartesian product, and then follow along with an example based on LinkedIn, which illustrates that a chasm trap produces unwanted duplicates. See that the USS Bridge is based on a union, which does not create any duplicates. · Chapter 13, Multi-Fact Queries: Distinguish between multiple facts “with direct connection” versus multiple facts “with no direct connection”. Explore how BI tools are capable of building aggregated virtual rows. · Chapter 14, Loops: Learn more about loops and five traditional techniques to solve them. Follow along with an implementation, which will illustrate the solution based on the USS approach. · Chapter 15, Non-Conformed Granularities: Learn about non-conformed granularities, and learn that the Unified Star Schema introduces a solution called “re-normalization”. · Chapter 16, Northwind Case Study. Witness how easy it is to detect the pitfalls of Northwind using the ODM convention. Follow along with an implementation of the USS approach on the Northwind database with various BI tools.

Master the most agile and resilient design for building analytics applications: the Unified Star Schema (USS) approach. The USS has many benefits over traditional dimensional modeling. Witness the power of the USS as a single star schema that serves as a foundation for all present and future business requirements of your organization.

The data warehousing bible updated for the new millennium Updated and expanded to reflect the many technological advances occurring since the previous edition, this latest edition of the data warehousing "bible" provides a comprehensive introduction to building data marts, operational data stores, the Corporate Information Factory, exploration warehouses, and Web-enabled warehouses. Written by the father of the data warehouse concept, the book also reviews the unique requirements for supporting e-business and explores various ways in which the traditional data warehouse can be integrated with new technologies to provide enhanced customer service, sales, and support-both online and offline-including near-line data storage techniques.

Agile Data Warehouse Design is a step-by-step guide for capturing data warehousing/business intelligence (DW/BI) requirements and turning them into high performance dimensional models in the most direct way: by modelstorming (data modeling + brainstorming) with BI stakeholders. This book describes BEAM✲, an agile approach to dimensional modeling, for improving communication between data warehouse designers, BI stakeholders and the whole DW/BI development team. BEAM✲ provides tools and techniques that will encourage DW/BI designers and developers to move away from their keyboards and entity relationship based tools and model interactively with their colleagues. The result is everyone thinks dimensionally from the outset! Developers understand how to efficiently implement dimensional modeling solutions. Business stakeholders feel ownership of the data warehouse they have created, and can already imagine how they will use it to answer their business questions. Within this book, you will learn: ✲ Agile dimensional modeling using Business Event Analysis & Modeling (BEAM✲) ✲ Modelstorming: data modeling that is quicker, more inclusive, more productive, and frankly more fun! ✲ Telling dimensional data stories using the 7Ws (who, what, when, where, how many, why and how) ✲ Modeling by example not abstraction; using data story themes, not crow's feet, to describe detail ✲ Storyboarding the data warehouse to discover conformed dimensions and plan iterative development ✲ Visual modeling: sketching timelines, charts and grids to model complex process measurement - simply ✲ Agile design documentation: enhancing star schemas with BEAM✲ dimensional shorthand notation ✲ Solving difficult DW/BI performance and usability problems with proven dimensional design patterns Lawrence Corr is a data warehouse designer and educator. As Principal of DecisionOne Consulting, he helps clients to review and simplify their data warehouse designs, and advises vendors on visual data modeling techniques. He regularly teaches agile dimensional modeling courses worldwide and has taught dimensional DW/BI skills to thousands of students. Jim Stagnitto is a data warehouse and master data management architect specializing in the healthcare, financial services, and information service industries. He is the founder of the data warehousing and data mining consulting firm Llumino.

A cutting-edge response to Ralph Kimball's challenge to thedata warehouse community that answers some tough questions aboutthe effectiveness of the relational approach to datawarehousing Written by one of the best-known exponents of the Bill Inmonapproach to data warehousing Addresses head-on the tough issues raised by Kimball andexplains how to choose the best modeling technique for solvingcommon data warehouse design problems Weighs the pros and cons of relational vs. dimensional modelingtechniques Focuses on tough modeling problems, including creating andmaintaining keys and modeling calendars, hierarchies, transactions,and data quality

Prepare for Microsoft Exam 70-767–and help demonstrate your real-world mastery of skills for managing data warehouses. This exam is intended for Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) data warehouse developers who create business intelligence (BI) solutions. Their responsibilities include data cleansing as well as ETL and data warehouse implementation. The reader should have experience installing and implementing a Master Data Services (MDS) model, using MDS tools, and creating a Master Data Manager database and web application. The reader should understand how to design and implement ETL control flow elements and work with a SQL Service Integration Services package. Focus on the expertise measured by these objectives: • Design, and implement, and maintain a data warehouse • Extract, transform, and load data • Build data quality solutionsThis Microsoft Exam Ref: • Organizes its coverage by exam objectives • Features strategic, what-if scenarios to challenge you • Assumes you have working knowledge of relational database technology and incremental database extraction, as well as experience with designing ETL control flows, using and debugging SSIS packages, accessing and importing or exporting data from multiple sources, and managing a SQL data warehouse. Implementing a SQL Data Warehouse About the Exam Exam 70-767 focuses on skills and knowledge required for working with relational database technology. About Microsoft Certification Passing this exam earns you credit toward a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) or Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) certification that demonstrates your mastery of data warehouse management Passing this exam as well as Exam 70-768 (Developing SQL Data Models) earns you credit toward a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) SQL 2016 Business Intelligence (BI) Development certification. See full details at: microsoft.com/learning

Use easy-to-apply patterns in SQL and Python to adopt modern analytics engineering to build agile platforms with dbt that are well-tested and simple to extend and run Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Key Features Build a solid dbt base and learn data modeling and the modern data stack to become an analytics engineer Build automated and reliable pipelines to deploy, test, run, and monitor ELTs with dbt Cloud Guided dbt + Snowflake project to build a pattern-based architecture that delivers reliable datasets Book Descriptiondbt Cloud helps professional analytics engineers automate the application of powerful and proven patterns to transform data from ingestion to delivery, enabling real DataOps. This book begins by introducing you to dbt and its role in the data stack, along with how it uses simple SQL to build your data platform, helping you and your team work better together. You’ll find out how to leverage data modeling, data quality, master data management, and more to build a simple-to-understand and future-proof solution. As you advance, you’ll explore the modern data stack, understand how data-related careers are changing, and see how dbt enables this transition into the emerging role of an analytics engineer. The chapters help you build a sample project using the free version of dbt Cloud, Snowflake, and GitHub to create a professional DevOps setup with continuous integration, automated deployment, ELT run, scheduling, and monitoring, solving practical cases you encounter in your daily work. By the end of this dbt book, you’ll be able to build an end-to-end pragmatic data platform by ingesting data exported from your source systems, coding the needed transformations, including master data and the desired business rules, and building well-formed dimensional models or wide tables that’ll enable you to build reports with the BI tool of your choice.What you will learn Create a dbt Cloud account and understand the ELT workflow Combine Snowflake and dbt for building modern data engineering pipelines Use SQL to transform raw data into usable data, and test its accuracy Write dbt macros and use Jinja to apply software engineering principles Test data and transformations to ensure reliability and data quality Build a lightweight pragmatic data platform using proven patterns Write easy-to-maintain idempotent code using dbt materialization Who this book is for This book is for data engineers, analytics engineers, BI professionals, and data analysts who want to learn how to build simple, futureproof, and maintainable data platforms in an agile way. Project managers, data team managers, and decision makers looking to understand the importance of building a data platform and foster a culture of high-performing data teams will also find this book useful. Basic knowledge of SQL and data modeling will help you get the most out of the many layers of this book. The book also includes primers on many data-related subjects to help juniors get started.

With this textbook, Vaisman and Zimányi deliver excellent coverage of data warehousing and business intelligence technologies ranging from the most basic principles to recent findings and applications. To this end, their work is structured into three parts. Part I describes “Fundamental Concepts” including conceptual and logical data warehouse design, as well as querying using MDX, DAX and SQL/OLAP. This part also covers data analytics using Power BI and Analysis Services. Part II details “Implementation and Deployment,” including physical design, ETL and data warehouse design methodologies. Part III covers “Advanced Topics” and it is almost completely new in this second edition. This part includes chapters with an in-depth coverage of temporal, spatial, and mobility data warehousing. Graph data warehouses are also covered in detail using Neo4j. The last chapter extensively studies big data management and the usage of Hadoop, Spark, distributed, in-memory, columnar, NoSQL and NewSQL database systems, and data lakes in the context of analytical data processing. As a key characteristic of the book, most of the topics are presented and illustrated using application tools. Specifically, a case study based on the well-known Northwind database illustrates how the concepts presented in the book can be implemented using Microsoft Analysis Services and Power BI. All chapters have been revised and updated to the latest versions of the software tools used. KPIs and Dashboards are now also developed using DAX and Power BI, and the chapter on ETL has been expanded with the implementation of ETL processes in PostgreSQL. Review questions and exercises complement each chapter to support comprehensive student learning. Supplemental material to assist instructors using this book as a course text is available online and includes electronic versions of the figures, solutions to all exercises, and a set of slides accompanying each chapter. Overall, students, practitioners and researchers alike will find this book the most comprehensive reference work on data warehouses, with key topics described in a clear and educational style. “I can only invite you to dive into the contents of the book, feeling certain that once you have completed its reading (or maybe, targeted parts of it), you will join me in expressing our gratitude to Alejandro and Esteban, for providing such a comprehensive textbook for the field of data warehousing in the first place, and for keeping it up to date with the recent developments, in this current second edition.” From the foreword by Panos Vassiliadis, University of Ioannina, Greece.