Book Image

The Data Warehouse Toolkit - Third Edition

By : Ralph Kimball, Margy Ross
Book Image

The Data Warehouse Toolkit - Third Edition

By: Ralph Kimball, Margy Ross

Overview of this book

The volume of data continues to grow as warehouses are populated with increasingly atomic data and updated with greater frequency. Dimensional modeling has become the most widely accepted approach for presenting information in data warehouse and business intelligence (DW/BI) systems. The goal of this book is to provide a one-stop shop for dimensional modeling techniques. The book is authored by Ralph Kimball and Margy Ross, known worldwide as educators, consultants, and influential thought leaders in data warehousing and business intelligence. The book begins with a primer on data warehousing, business intelligence, and dimensional modeling, and you’ll explore more than 75-dimensional modeling techniques and patterns. Then you’ll understand dimension tables in-depth to get a good grip on retailing and moved towards the topics of inventory. Moving ahead, you’ll learn how to use this book for procurement, order management, accounting, customer relationship management, and many more business sectors. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to gather all the essential knowledge, practices, and patterns for designing dimensional models.
Table of Contents (31 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Cover
2
Title Page
3
Copyright
4
About the Authors
5
Credits
6
Acknowledgements
29
Index
30
Advertisement
31
End User License Agreement

Round Up the Requirements

Establishing the architecture of an ETL system begins with one of the toughest challenges: rounding up the requirements. By this we mean gathering and understanding all the known requirements, realities, and constraints affecting the ETL system. The list of requirements can be pretty overwhelming, but it’s essential to lay them on the table before launching into the development of the ETL system.

The ETL system requirements are mostly constraints you must live with and adapt your system to. Within the framework of these requirements, there are opportunities to make your own decisions, exercise judgment, and leverage creativity, but the requirements dictate the core elements that the ETL system must deliver. The following ten sections describe the major requirements areas that impact the design and development of the ETL system.

Before launching the ETL design and development effort, you should provide a short response for each of the following ten requirements...