With this textbook, Vaisman and Zimányi deliver excellent coverage of
data warehousing and business intelligence technologies ranging from the
most basic principles to recent findings and applications. To this end,
their work is structured into three parts. Part I describes "Fundamental
Concepts" including multi-dimensional models; conceptual and logical
data warehouse design and MDX and SQL/OLAP. Subsequently, Part II
details "Implementation and Deployment," which includes physical data
warehouse design; data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) and
data analytics. Lastly, Part III covers "Advanced Topics" such as
spatial data warehouses; trajectory data warehouses; semantic
technologies in data warehouses and novel technologies like Map Reduce,
column-store databases and in-memory databases.
As a key characteristic of the book, most of the topics are presented
and illustrated using application tools. Specifically, a case study
based on the well-known Northwind database illustrates how the concepts
presented in the book can be implemented using Microsoft Analysis
Services and Pentaho Business Analytics. All chapters are summarized
using review questions and exercises to support comprehensive student
learning. Supplemental material to assist instructors using this book as
a course text is available at http: //cs.ulb.ac.be/DWSDIbook/, including
electronic versions of the figures, solutions to all exercises, and a
set of slides accompanying each chapter.
Overall, students, practitioners and researchers alike will find this
book the most comprehensive reference work on data warehouses, with key
topics described in a clear and educational style.