SQL Server Magazine

BI Without the Data Warehouse

Michelle discusses the pros and cons of analyzing raw transactional data instead of extracted, transformed, and loaded data warehouse data.

BI without the Data Warehouse, Part 2

Michelle discusses the benefits of building a data warehouse rather than analyzing raw transactional data.

Desperately Seeking Samples

Educate yourself on the design and operation concepts for databases and data warehouses by taking advantage of Microsoft’s sample databases. Although the business scenarios are fictitious, they translate to real-world uses.

Data Warehouse Workloads and Use Cases

Determine the type of data warehouse you have and the workloads it uses so that you can then optimize its performance.

Where in the World Are Pubs and Northwind?

Indexing the Data Warehouse

Learn the best way to index the dimensions, and fact tables, and staging databases in your data warehouse to reduce query response time.

Indexing the Data Warehouse

Who Is Bill Inmon?

Find out why Bill Inmon is an icon in the data warehousing world.

Many-to-Many Relationships in the Data Warehouse

Learn how to model your database to support both market basket and affinity analysis.

Indexing the Staging Database

Find out how to index the database that's used as a landing place for transactional and non-transactional datasources as they enter the data warehouse.

Retaining Relational Integrity in the Data Warehouse

Find out why Michelle thinks you shouldn't enforce referential integrity at the data warehouse level.

Who Can Do Backups?

Backup and Restore Fundamentals

Back up your SQL Server databases regularly to prevent lost data in the event of a disaster.

Data Warehousing: Degenerate Dimensions

Find out how to map control numbers to a fact table and associate them with each line item.

Data Warehousing: Junk Dimensions

Find out how you can keep your data warehouse design simple by placing miscellaneous attributes into junk dimensions.

Alternative Backup Strategies

Learn about advanced SQL Server backup options.

Data Warehousing: Horizontally Partitioning the Fact Table

Save yourself from having to deal with large, difficult-to-manage fact tables by partitioning the rows.

Who Can Do Backups?

Find out who can do database backups in your organization.

Database Recovery Models

Database recovery models include full, simple, and bulk-logged.

Standard Backup Commands

Learn the difference between DUMP and BACKUP.