The Microsoft® Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL Server™ 2005 and the Microsoft® Business Intelligence Toolset

Acknowledgments

First, we want to thank the thousands of you who have read the Kimball Group's Toolkit books, attended our courses, and engaged us in consulting projects. We always learn from you, and you've had a profound impact on our thinking and the business intelligence industry.

This book would not have been written without the assistance of many people on the SQL Server product development team. Of special note is Donald Farmer, who gave generously of his time in clarifying ideas and reviewing the chapters related to Integration Services and metadata. Siva Harinath and Stephen Quinn contributed material for the real-time chapter. Stuart Ozer reviewed the entire book, at a point when his time was at a premium (which is almost always the case at Microsoft!). Others at Microsoft reviewed individual chapters and answered many questions. These reviewers, listed alphabetically, include Carolyn Chau, Grant Dickinson, Jamie MacLennan, John Miller, Ashvini Sharma, Dave Wickert, and Rob Zare.

We especially thank Bill Baker, the General Manager of SQL Server Business Intelligence at Microsoft, for his vision of "BI for the masses," for his leadership of the SQL BI product development team, and for his support for our project.

Our colleagues at the Kimball Group were invaluable. Their encouragement kept us going while we were writing the book, and their reviews helped us polish and prune material. Ralph Kimball, of course, had a huge impact on the book, not just from his writing and ...