Synopsis
This book focuses on SQL for analytics and it is primarily intended for a training or educational environment in a College, University, or technical school. It contains SQL code that will be used by a professional data analyst or data scientist to convert data to information. Given the importance of SQL not only in operational databases but also in data warehouses, online analytical processing cubes (OLAP), data mining, reporting applications and even in Hadoop distributions with Hive, one understands that SQL is a must have tool in the belt of any data professional irrespective of data technology or operational platform. This book is not intended for database or system administrators and as such it does not contain DDL (data definition language) statements to create logins, backups, functions, etc. A professional who wants to become a system administrator should look at a different book. This one concentrates specifically on SQL for data analysis. All the examples have a business purpose such as inventory replenishment, order reporting, shipping calculations, customer segmentation, cycle-time calculations and a myriad of other business related topics. As such, this book will be a very good fit for an MIS class in a business school. To that purpose it contains 307 exercises in its 32 chapters which the student can complete during class time. It also contains ten questions after each chapter which the instructor can use for in class discussions or test generation. Finally, it contains sixty-two case studies, two at the end of each chapter, for additional work as homework or for sharpening the skills learned in each chapter. A fundamental principle from the author of this book is that there should be no software to buy or complex installations on database servers to use this book. The instructor should and will be able to work independently of any IT departments in the College, University or other school. The student will simply download the free SQL Server Express edition on his or her own as well as the sample database provided online. The author has devoted a whole chapter with step by step instructions on how to download the free version of SQL Server, how to install it, how to download the sample database, and finally how to start using the book. The instructor should spend zero time on all these tasks. The book is the culmination of Pindaro's 17 years of teaching on various database subjects at the University level in three different business schools. He taught at all levels, from freshmen to executives with all the inherited fun and challenges. After hundreds of labs and thousands of questions and comments from the students, Pindaro wrote this book to assist the students in becoming SQL experts so that they can be absolutely successful with their manipulation of data in the working environment. Currently, no matter the position, industry, or job function, it looks like everyone is asking for SQL skills. For the instructor, Pindaro tried to make this book as friendly as possible. He personally tested the book in his own classes to see how the labs work in the class/training environment. He has also prepared a separate booklet that the instructor can receive as a pdf/word file (upon confirmation of instructor status) that includes the solutions to all the case studies. If the instructor still has any questions, Pindaro is always available for help at alphapress@hotmail.com. He loves responding to questions. The goal is to learn how to use databases for real business tasks. Pindaro has worked on hundreds of business databases in the real world for the last 22 years. Pindaro's exciting relationship with databases started with DBase III back in 1991, continuing with Access, MS SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and IBM DB2 for a number of years. He is still in love with all of them. After more than twenty years, he still works with data, information processing, integration, and dissemination.
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