Impossible Data Warehouse Situations: Solutions from the Experts

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.

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