Data Warehousing For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Introduction

The data warehousing revolution has been underway for over ten years within information technology (IT) departments around the world. If you're an IT professional, or you're fashionably referred to as a knowledge worker (someone who regularly uses computer technology in the course of your day-to-day business operations), data warehousing is for you! If you haven't heard of this phenomenon, you might be aware of the tools that access the data warehouse — business intelligence tools. Data Warehousing For Dummies, 2nd Edition, guides you through the overwhelming amount of hype about this subject to help you get the most from data warehousing.

If you're an IT professional (a software developer, database administrator, software development manager, or data-processing executive), this book provides you with a clear, no-hype description of data warehousing technology and methodology — what works, what doesn't work, and why.

If you regularly use computers in your job to find information and facts as a contracts analyst, researcher, district sales manager, or any one of thousands of other jobs in which data is a key asset to you and your organization, this book has in-depth information about the real business value (again, without the hype) that you can gain from data warehousing.

Why I Wrote This Book

Although data warehousing can be an incredibly powerful tool for you and others in your organization, pitfalls (a lot of them!) are scattered along your path, from thinking about ...