Oracle® DBA Guide to Data Warehousing and Star Schemas

Oracle® DBA Guide to Data Warehousing and Star Schemas

by Bert Scalzo
Released June 2003
Publisher(s): Pearson
ISBN: 0130325848

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Book description

  • The definitive, real-world guide to Oracle data warehousing

  • Maximizing performance, flexibility, and manageability in production environments

  • Hardware/software architectures, star schema design, partitioning, and more

  • Industrial strength data loading and query optimization techniques

  • By the world-renowned architect of 7-Eleven's multi-terabyte datawarehouse

Maximize Oracle data warehouse performance, flexibility, and manageability

Oracle DBAs finally have a definitive guide to every aspect of designing, constructing, tuning, and maintaining star schema data warehouses with Oracle 8i and 9i. Bert Scalzo, one of the world's leading Oracle data warehousing experts, offers practical, hard-won lessons and breakthrough techniques for maximizing performance, flexibility, and manageability in any production environment. Coverage includes:

  • Data warehousing fundamentals for DBAs--including what a data warehouse isn't

  • Planning software architecture: business intelligence, user interfaces, Oracle versions, OS platforms, and more

  • Planning hardware architecture: CPUs, memory, disk space, and configuration

  • Radically different star schema design for radically improved performance

  • Tuning ad-hoc queries for lightning speed Industrial-strength data loading techniques

  • Aggregate tables: maximizing performance benefits, minimizing complexity tradeoffs

  • Improving manageability: The right ways to partition

  • Data warehouse administration: Backup/recovery, space and extent management, updates, patches, and more

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. The Prentice Hall PTR Oracle Series
  3. About Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Introduction
  6. What Is a Data Warehouse?
    1. The Nature of the Beast
    2. Data Warehouse vs. Big Database
    3. Operational Data Stores Don't Count
    4. Executive Information Systems Don't Count
    5. Warehouses Evolve without Phases
    6. The Warehouse Roller Coaster
  7. Software Architecture
    1. Business Intelligence Options
    2. Oracle Version Options
    3. Oracle Instance Options—Querying
    4. Oracle Instance Options—Loading
    5. Recommended Oracle Architecture
    6. Great Operating System Debate
    7. The Great Programming Language Debate
    8. The Serial vs. Parallel Programming Debate
  8. Hardware Architecture
    1. Four Basic Questions
    2. How Many CPUs?
    3. How Much Memory?
    4. How Many of What Disks?
    5. Recommended Hardware Architecture
    6. The Great Vendor Debate
    7. The 32- vs. 64-Bit Oracle Debate
    8. The Raw vs. Cooked Files Debate
    9. The Need for Logical Volume Managers
  9. Star Schema Universe
    1. The Rationale for Stars
    2. Star Schema Challenges
    3. Modeling Star Schemas
    4. Avoid Snowflakes
    5. Dimensional Hierarchies
    6. Querying Star Schemas
    7. Fact Table Options
    8. When Stars Implode
  10. Tuning Ad-Hoc Queries
    1. Key Tuning Requirements
    2. Star Optimization Evolution
    3. Star Transformation Questions
    4. Initialization Parameters
    5. Star Schema Index Design
    6. Cost-Based Optimizer
    7. Some Parting Thoughts
  11. Loading the Warehouse
    1. What About ETL Tools?
    2. Loading Architecture
    3. Upstream Source Data
    4. Transformation Requirements
    5. Method 1: Transform, Then Load
    6. Method 2: Load, Then Transform
    7. Deploying the Loading Architecture
  12. Implementing Aggregates
    1. What Aggregates to Build?
    2. Loading Architecture
    3. Aggregation by Itself
    4. Use Materialized Views
  13. Partitioning for Manageability
    1. A Plethora of Design Options
    2. Logical Partitioning Design
    3. Simple Partitioning in 8i
    4. Simple Partitioning in 9i
    5. Complex Partitioning in 8i
    6. Complex Partitioning in 9i
    7. Partition Option Benchmarks
  14. Operational Issues and More
    1. Backup and Recovery
    2. Space Management
    3. Extent Management
    4. Updates and Patches

Product information

  • Title: Oracle® DBA Guide to Data Warehousing and Star Schemas
  • Author(s): Bert Scalzo
  • Release date: June 2003
  • Publisher(s): Pearson
  • ISBN: 0130325848