BI & DW reading list

Or to put it another way, where do I look for inspiration

Some of the following are physical books (real paper) and others are electronic (either as books for download or web content)

Data Warehouses

Good sources on the “whys and wherefores” are the writings of Ralph Kimball and Bill Inmon. They take differing stances on how things are done, but, as we should expect, there is no single right approach to creating a data warehouse – if there was just one way then consultants like me would not have jobs. That said a Kimballesque design is easier for business users to understand; that is data hierarchies are a natural way of viewing data.

Other good sources of generic design information come from vendor websites. In particular Oracle has the extremely useful (and to my mind essential reading for all Oracle DBAs, not just DW ones) Oracle 10gR2 Data Warehousing Guide (registration required) Other vendors have their own guides and manuals

One of my most used books is Oracle 10g Data Warehousing by Hobbs, Hillson, Lawande & Smith

BI Reporting

There is lot less of the general information around as the reporting tools are so different (yet, so similar) that said Microsoft has a lot of material on it it’s SQL Server 2005 BI subsite (which also deals with the data warehouse too) that can be used as introduction to reporting and OLAP cubes. Other vendors have resources for their own products, sometimes they are very good, but others are less good, especially if they make money through selling implementation services. Another good source (especially for Oracle BI) is the Rittman Mead web site