Building and Maintaining a Data Warehouse

Book excerpt: As it is with building a house, most of the work necessary to build a data warehouse is neither visible nor obvious when looking at the completed product. While it may be easy to plan for a data warehouse that incorporates all the right concepts, taking the steps needed to create a warehouse that is as functional and user-friendly as it is theoretically sound, is not especially easy. That's the challenge that Building and Maintaininga Data Warehouse answers. Based on a foundation of industry-accepted principles, this work provides an easy-to-follow approach that is cohesive and holistic. By offering the perspective of a successful data warehouse, as well as that of a failed one, this workdetails those factors that must be accomplished and those that are best avoided. Organized to logically progress from more general to specific information, this valuable guide: Presents areas of a data warehouse individually and in sequence, showing how each piece becomes a working part of the whole Examines the concepts and principles that are at the foundation of every successful data warehouse Explains how to recognize and attend to problematic gaps in an established data warehouse Provides the big picture perspective that planners and executives require Those considering the planning and creation of a data warehouse, as well as those who've already built one will profit greatly from the insights garnered by the author during his years of creating and gathering information on state-of-the-art data warehouses that are accessible, convenient, and reliable.