Specific Questions (Basic Questions)

How are you guys? I'm using the first edition of the Life Cycle Toolkit. Just some quick questions:

1) Page 170 in Life Cycle book talks about a "Good Browser." I don't understand the concept. Can anyone help me please?

2) How do i learn or determine when snow flaking is permissible (p 170) and when it is not. I've heard of people completely avoiding it like its completely forbidden. So i would like to better understand this concept. (Star schema subdimension on page 176).

3) Is there a workbook or step-by-step book, web page where i can learn how to get started? the book is easy to read but there doesn't seem to be any practical examples. I understand the basic concepts but I don't know anything about designing. I only remember so far once he gives some steps but they are brief and never reviewed or applied.

Thanks!

1. He is simply referring to any 3rd party query tool rather than mentioning specific products. Considering when the book was written, thats a good thing as half the products at the time are no longer around. So 'good browser' is just another way of saying 'find something that works for you'.

2. Check the main Kimball Group site. Ralph has written papers giving examples of when snowflaking is necessary or desirable. In other situations it is a matter of performance. A DBMS that does a good job of optimizing star schema queries usually doesn't perform as well against a snowflake.

3. Data Warehouse Toolkit goes into the mechanics of implementing a data warehouse.

Thanks for the information. I actually bought The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling. The teacher said it was the wrong book. I read through Chapter 3. I understood it. I was enjoying it but i didn't see any thing practical like do this and then do that. But there were good examples.