The Data Warehouse Journal
My good friend Dan Linstedt has begun publication of a new online journal that aggregates articles, video, and tweets from across the data warehouse world.
Check it out!
– Kent
The Data Warrior
Changing the world, one data model at a time. How can I help you?
Archive for the category “Data Vault”
A Data Architect’s Initial View of Data Vault
Wow this is really cool! A long time, experienced, Kimball-style architect had this to say (and more!) about the Data Vault:
The more I thought about it, the more I began thinking a traditional staging area and its complexities are a huge headache! The simpler design using the data vault methodology as the persistent staging area offers huge benefits over the traditional Kimball style data warehouse staging area. This includes repeatable code use in building and populating the data vault as well as the ability to easily account and validate the data.
(see more at A Data Architect’s Initial View of Data Vault | Making Data Meaningful.)
That pretty much says it all.
Ready to learn Data Vault now?
Well then get to it! Go to the learning portal and sign up or at least go buy the book!
Later.
Kent
How’s your surfing?
I read this today on one of my favorite blogs – Zenhabits, and it definitely spoke to me:
We are not walking a path, but surfing a sea.
Most people look at goal setting as picking a destination, then figuring out a path to get there. That assumes you’re walking on land that will change very little, and that while you will have unforeseen obstacles, you’ll be on stable ground and the destination won’t move. That’s not at all true — life is more like the sea, ever changing with no fixed paths or destinations, with swells and currents and waves that change everything at every moment. The ultimate skill, then, isn’t setting a destination (goal) or a path (plan), but surfing. In surfing, you take whatever waves come, learn to judge the waves as they come, learn to ride the wave as it changes, not as you planned. It’s going with the flow (literally), and changing what you do depending on how the flow changes. (via » Why We Overplan :zenhabits.)
For years, every time someone asked about how I got to where I am in my career, I often found myself at a loss to give them a seemingly satisfactory answer.
What Leo wrote above articulates really well what I have been doing (unconsciously) most of my life – going with the flow. I have only been on surfboard once (yes, even data warriors surf) but the analogy fits really well in my mind. (BTW – A good downhill ski run or shooting some white water fits too)
It “feels” like the right answer.
Oddly (or not?) it fits with a classic quote from my martial arts hero Bruce Lee: “Be water”
Pretty Zen, right?
So what does this have to do with data modeling, data warehousing, etc?
Mostly I have found in doing agile (or agile-like) projects, the team needs to be like water, or really like a surfer on the water, and go with the flow through the sprints and iterations.
Changing directions at a moments notice as the users needs and priorities change.
Embrace the change.
Doing so without judgment or expectation.
Flow around the obstacles and blockages – or risk crashing on the reef!
So, let go of all the goals and set-in-stone project plans. Embrace the flow and see where you might go.
Who knows, you might hang 10 on the biggest wave of your life!
Aloha.
Kent
P.S. If you want to learn to be a better data surfer check out the Data Vault Learning Portal and learn how to implement the most agile data modeling technique around – Data Vault.
Want to be a Data Vault implementation Black Belt?
Are you tired of seeing failed data warehouse projects?
Tired of being part of the problem or having to clean up after someone else messed it up?
Well, now you can be part of the solution and kick implementation failures in the <you know what>.
I am pleased to tell you that my good friend, Dan Linstedt, creator of the Data Vault, has just launched a new, online, Data Vault training portal.
And it is now open to the public!
The first class you can get is on Data Vault implementation.
It is way cool!
The quality is excellent and the material is even better (including material I have never seen in a class). Dan provides tons of information about not only the right way to implement the Data Vault but gives examples of how he has done it and gives you code templates (for multiple databases) you can implement on a real project.
Why would you want to sign up for this training? Well lots of reasons:
- You read the Data Vault modeling book, but can’t quite see how to load the model after it is built.
- It’s less expensive than face to face training. No time off or travel required!
- You can rewind and watch the training at your own pace (no need to feel behind or ahead of the rest of the class).
- You get access to the course for an entire year instead of 1 to 3 days in a lecture format. So you can watch it over and over again.
- You get to ask Dan questions directly (and you can even engage and interact with other students).
- Dan is going to host tele-seminars for members only where you can ask him any question (without having to pay his normal consulting fees).
- It is currently on sale at a huge discount.
This is really a great deal.
So, what are you waiting for?
Head on over to the site now and get started! (If you are ready to buy and want to skip the sales stuff, just scroll to the bottom and hit “add to cart”. So why are you still here?)
You can’t get this material anywhere else and get direct access to the guy that invented it.
Doesn’t get much better than that.
Later.
Kent
More free stuff!
Hey gang,
I have been working hard over the past few weeks to find some of my old white papers so I could make them available to everyone on my blog site. Well, I finally found a few of them on some flash drives and figured out how to upload them to here to WordPress.
If you look above you should now see a new menu item called “White papers”. Click that link to get access to the papers I have found so far.
They are FREE for you to download. I am not even asking you to “opt in” or anything.
I just ask that you respect the copyrights and tell folks where you found them (share on Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweet it, etc).
I know there are more but have to figure out which ones are still useful (or at least moderately so). So be sure to check back often to see what I have added.
If you remember any I did in the past you might want a copy of, tell me in the comments (below) and I will see if I can find it.
Oh and as a bonus, I have also included a copy of my recent “Introduction to Data Vault Data Modeling” article just in case you have not read it yet.
Hope you find some of these useful. Have a great week!
Kent
P.S. I am thinking about publishing some of these, with minor revisions, to Kindle. Do you think that would be useful to any of you?
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