Mary E. Gartin said
Is serving as a good guideline for our migration from sql 2000 to sql 2005 and how to build tables for the analysis services.
J. Arnold said
This is a very good book about the process of building a DW/BI application. It is not good for an example of how to build a DW/BI. In fact the examples they give I found to be impossible to follow. This book could have been much better if they had a solid example to follow their excellent process.
Edward Scheidelman said
I've enthusiastically referenced Kimball publications for business intelligence projects over the years; everything from how to manage history in slowly changing dimensions to fact-less fact tables to creating an initial data warehouse project plan, always with outstanding results. Mundy, Thornthwaite, and Kimball achieve two key milestones with The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit. First, they successfully apply many years of data warehousing scholarship and expertise to a real-world platform. This is accomplished from a practical perspective with respect to MS SQL Server, as the authors are realistic of both the strengths and weaknesses of the platform and tailor their approach accordingly. Second, this publication is one of the first to recognize modern incarnations of the MS SQL Server as a viable platform for data warehousing. Microsoft has addressed the stability issues that plagued earlier releases of the SQL Server. If you're considering an MS SQL warehouse deployment, I would strongly encourage you and your staff to read this book.
Maru said
I bought this book for a class. It is very complete. I am an IT person who need this sense of Business Size of BI while I am updating my SQL Server skills. I recommend this book.
S. Martin said
Having spent more time doing data warehousing than reading about it, I didn't realize what a phenomenon the Kimball Method had become. I was interviewing with a company that mentioned Kimball and wanted to use his methods to build a data warehouse on SQL Server 2005, so I turned to Amazon, found this book, used my Amazon Prime to get the tome and got the job. So how was the book? Honestly, it covers the Kimball Method well and most experienced analysts will not find much new other than the jargon. The practical advice from Mundy and Thornthwaite is valuable and will help you make some practical decisions on implementation, if not spell out all the steps. My feeling was that if you are comfortable with implementing data marts or data warehouses, this book will give you the advice you need for setting up a SQL Server 2005 data warehouse and implementing Analysis Services. For a more in depth look at how to implement Analysis Services, I recommend Melomed's book as a follow on.
The only complaint I have with this book is it over sells SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) as an ETL tool. That is probably Mundy's Microsoft viewpoint speaking rather than actual experience with the tool. After using SSIS, I look at it as Data Transformation Services (DTS) with a nice face on it, but really its just lipstick on the same pig. I have picked up several books on SSIS to try find out how to do all the wonderful things it promises, but they pretty much echo the documentatiion, so I can't really recommend any of them.
Overall, this is book well worth reading. After spending the last year on an Oracle/Teradata project, its refreshing to get back to SQL Server 2005 and Analysis Services. If you are just making the jump to data warehousing on SQL Server 2005, this is a must read. If you are already familiar with Kimball, you will skip a lot but get some good implementation advice and that makes it worth the price. If you want to know more about MDX or SSIS, this isn't what you are looking for.
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