Impossible Data Warehouse Situations: Solutions from the Experts - Softcover

Stacie Parillo; Adelman, Sid; Dyché, Jill; Bischoff, Joyce; Hackney, Douglas; Ivoghli, Sean; Kelley, Chuck; Moss, Larissa; Marco, David; Rehm, Clay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201760339 ISBN 13: 9780201760330

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002

Synopsis

This book takes a unique approach to the problems faced by data warehouse professionals. The author and the contributors have gathered over 90 situations that they have been asked about in their seminars and presentations, that they have faced in their own work, and that have been submitted to the very popular "Ask the Experts" forum at DMReview. These are all real situations, but they have been disguised to protect the guilty. Topics covered include staffing, budgeting, security, vendors, architecture, and data quality. Each of the "impossible" situations will have one or more solutions contributed by the expert panel. Their different answers and viewpoints, especially when they disagree with one another, provide enlightening reading, as well as useful ideas. This approach should appeal to a broad range of people involved in all aspects of Data Warehouses.

About this title

About the Author

Sid Adelman is founder of Sid Adelman & Associates, an organization specializing in planning and implementing data warehouses. He presents regularly at data warehouse conferences and conducts a Data Warehouse Project Management seminar. Sid is also a founding member of the BIAlliance. He jointly developed a methodology that provides a master plan for implementing data warehouses. He wrote Data Warehouse Project Management (Addison-Wesley, 2000) with Larissa Moss.

Joyce Bischoff, president of Bischoff Consulting, Inc., is an internationally recognized consultant, writer, and lecturer specializing in all aspects of data warehousing, database design, and design methodologies. She has been involved in planning, designing, implementing, and performing design reviews of data warehouses in more than 50 companies in the credit card, chemical, pharmaceutical, insurance, financial, oil refining, publishing, and hospital industries. She is the lead author of the book Data Warehouse: Practical Advice from the Experts 1997, which brings together opinions from 20 contributing authors, and a member of the expert panel for the monthly column "Ask the Experts" at http://www.dmreview.com. She is the author of numerous articles and frequently presents at data warehousing conferences all over the world. She may be reached at JoyceBischoff@cs.com.

Jill Dyché is a partner with Baseline Consulting Group, a specialty consulting firm focusing on the delivery of business intelligence solutions across industries. Since 1985 she has been working with Fortune 1000 companies worldwide to help align strategic technology initiatives with corporate business objectives. Jill is a frequent speaker at technology and marketing conferences, and her articles have been featured in a variety of publications: Information Week, Oracle magazine, Teradata Review, Telephony Magazine, The Washington Times, and The Chicago Tribune.

Douglas Hackney is President of Enterprise Group, Ltd. and is a monthly columnist for Data Management Review. He has contributed to Computer World and speaks regularly at industry events, including DCI's Data Warehousing Conference, Bill Inmon's Data Warehousing Conference, and the Data Warehouse Institute.

Sean Ivoghli is the founder and president of Digital Symmetry, Inc., formerly the Data Warehouse Consulting Group, a consulting firm that specializes in providing end-to-end data warehousing, business intelligence, and data/application integration solutions. He has over 12 years of experience in full life-cycle data warehouse and information systems development, and he provides expert consulting services in data warehouse design, development, project management, and information management strategies. Mr. Ivoghli is the coauthor of Compass, a comprehensive data warehousing methodology that offers multiple tracks for developing scalable, flexible, and high-performance data warehousing and data mart solutions in a cost-effective manner. He can be reached at sivoghli@digitalsymmetryinc.com and at sivoghli@dwcg.com.

Chuck Kelley is an internationally known expert in database technology. He has over 25 years of experience in designing and implementing operational/production systems and data warehouses. Mr. Kelley has worked in some facet of the implementation process of over 45 data warehouses. Mr. Kelley teaches seminars on SQL, Database Internals, Implementing the Data Warehouse, Designing and Implementing the Star Schema from Your Operational System, and other database and data warehousing topics. He has been a speaker at Database World, Client/Server World, UniForum, COMDEX, Rdb C

From the Back Cover

A functional data warehouse is vital to an organization's success, but building and maintaining any data warehouse is fraught with managerial and technical pitfalls. Impossible Data Warehouse Situations introduces possible solutions to ninety-one common crises that confront companies of all types, sizes, and structures. Nine leading data warehousing experts provide the thoughtful and detailed guidance corporate executives, IT managers and staff, and end-users need to prevent and survive seemingly impossible situations.

This book serves as a quick reference for resolving specific data warehouse problems and as a practical introduction to the realities of data warehousing not covered in basic texts. Part I addresses management issues, including weak organizational support, unrealistic schedules, and personnel problems. Part II focuses on technical challenges, such as security, integration, and performance. In both sections, Sid Adelman and his coauthors provide multiple perspectives and solutions illustrated by practical examples. Also included are recommendations for further reading and glossaries covering technical terminology and acronyms as well as colloquial English.

Drawing upon their combined 142 years of experience with data warehouse implementations, Sid Adelman, Joyce Bischoff, Jill Dyche, Douglas Hackney, Sean Ivoghli, Chuck Kelley, David Marco, Larissa Moss, and Clay Rehm offer invaluable advice on:

• Management issues
• Changing objectives and requirements
• Budget
• Organization and staffing
• User and team issues
• Product planning and schedules
• Data warehousing standards
• Tools and vendors
• Security
• Data quality
• Integration
• Data warehousing architecture
• Performance

Readers gain access to data warehousing's top minds and learn how to thrive in seemingly impossible situations.

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In the seminars, presentations and classes we teach on data warehouse, we are often subjected to what appear to be “Impossible Situations.” Likewise, on the DMReview “Ask the Experts” forum (reference dmreview) we are confronted with questions that, at first glance, appear to have no answers or solutions. They do have solutions and that’s what this book is all about.

The 91 Impossible Situations in this book were taken from our classes, from the DMReview “Ask the Expert” forum, from data warehouse consultants and colleagues in the field who have experienced these situations. These are all real situations but they have been disguised and sanitized to protect the authors as well as to protect the organizations experiencing the situations from the attendant shame and humiliation. As a side note, as the situations were disseminated, reviewers were quick to say, “I know what company this describes,” and they were almost always wrong. Purpose of This Book

There is no reason that each organization, as it begins and continues to develop data warehouse projects, must wrestle with many of the very difficult situations that have confounded other organizations. The same impossible situations continue to raise their ugly heads, often with surprisingly little relation to the industry, the size of the organization, or the makeup of the organizational structure. This book is, first of all, to let you know you are not alone and your problems are not unique. The book should give hope to the perplexed who see no obvious solution to their problems.

Some of the situations should resonate with those of you planning to enhance your data warehouse, to add new data, additional users, and new applications. It may be that the impossible situation has not yet emerged, but you definitely see it just around the bend. This means that you should be able to avoid the situation rather than having it develop and then needing to fix it.Who Should Read This Book

Every stakeholder, data warehouse architect, data warehouse project manager, and user liaison responsible for any portion of the data warehouse will be faced with the challenges identified in these pages. These people are looking for solutions to situations that, at first, appear to have no answer and appear to be impossible.

This is not an introduction to data warehouse. Readers should have some level of familiarity with data warehouse either through practical experience, conferences, or previous reading of data warehouse texts. This book is also not geared to any primary topic such as meta data or data quality but covers a broad range of areas. The reference section has both introductory as well as more advanced suggested reading material.

User liaisons and managers may only be interested in and want to read Section I, Impossible Managerial Situations. How This Book is Organized

The first part of the book deals with managerial situations and the second part with technical situations. The order within these sections is very roughly the order in which projects are developed and situations are encountered but the sections are not dependent on each other. The book can be read from front to back but more likely, the readers will be drawn to the sections that cause them the most pain. For example, if the reader is struggling with data quality issues, Section 11, Data Quality, would be the place to start. The order of the answers is alphabetical by the experts’ last name.

A technical glossary at the back of the book should clarify some terms and will also keep the reader from going down the wrong path. Terminology misunderstanding in this fast-changing field has caused significant misinterpretation that has resulted in wasted time and money, dissension and hurt feelings. The glossary contains acronyms and data warehouse and IT terminology. There will be a few cases with more than one definition. Please refer to the definitions to avoid any misunderstandings on your part. Those whose native language is not English will find the Colloquial Glossary useful since the experts were fond of using colloquial expressions.

The reader will notice strong biases in the experts’ responses. The experts came to these dearly held opinions honestly through extensive experience in real world situations. The reader will also quickly realize that some of the answers are in sharp disagreement and appear to be contradictory while a few are embarrassingly similar. The editor made no attempt to reconcile the differences. Recognizing that there is usually more than one answer, very much depending on the organization and the situation, the different approaches have been maintained. Any reconciliation or choice of approach is left to the reader who, we assume, is astute enough to find the relevant answer and pick the solution that will work in his or her organization. The Experts

Sid Adelman
Joyce Bischoff
Jill Dyche
Douglas Hackney
Sean Ivoghli
Chuck Kelley
David Marco
Larissa Moss
Clay Rehm

The experts represented in this book are all real experts in data warehouse. They have been working in the data warehouse arena for a cumulative 130 (+12) years. If anyone can address these impossible situations, they can.

The experts have suggested best practices based on their experiences with both successful and unsuccessful implementations. The experts correctly identified many of the situations as reflecting the symptoms of a dysfunctional organization, knowing that without understanding the real causes, no effective solution could be honestly recommended. The experts resorted to making assumptions about the situations when not enough information was provided.

The experts’ bios are in the Appendix.Follow-on

There were a number of impossible situations that came in after the original batch of 91 were sent to the experts and we all feel sure more will appear. If you have a situation you would like to contribute, please send it to impossibles@sidadelman.com. If there is to be a second edition, your situation may be included.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201760339
• ISBN 13: 9780201760330
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432