Advanced Data Warehousing Workshop

by Ralph Kimball

Description

This workshop, supported by numerous handouts, is divided into three in-depth topics. The first day and a half covers advanced data modeling situations.
The afternoon of the second day is an introduction to data mining techniques, and the third day covers data warehouse architectures.
Part of the workshop is "active" design, with the participants working as teams to develop specific solutions for the dimensional modeling and data mining topics.

Main Topics

First day: Advanced topics in dimensional modeling

• Review of standard dimensional modeling situations
• Very large product dimensions with many attributes
• Multiple units of measures
• Value Band reporting
• Reporting with open ended attributes (bank accounts, patient diagnoses, sic codes)
• Traversing complex customer hierarchies and manufacturing parts lists
• State of the art quality assurance checking when you don't know the right answer
• Capturing and tracking complex behavior
• Administering aggregates with adjustable category boundaries
• Advanced schema design exercise (1 hour: class divided into groups)
• Discussion of design questions brought by students

Second day: Data mining techniques

• The desired results of data mining
• The best application areas for data mining
• The expectations of data mining
• The major tool types
• Selecting the right tools: a review of currently offered tools in the market
• Adapting data warehouse data for data mining uses
• Living with the tools you choose
• Data mining exercise

Third day: Data mart architectures

• The data flow (a horizontal cut)
• The tower of machines (a vertical cut)
• Managing security with a tower of machines