The Data Warrior

Changing the world, one data model at a time. How can I help you?

11 Mar 2012
1 Comment

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:

  1. You read the Data Vault modeling book, but can’t quite see how to load the model after it is built.
  2. It’s less expensive than face to face training. No time off or travel required!
  3. You can rewind and watch the training at your own pace (no need to feel behind or ahead of the rest of the class).
  4. 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.
  5. You get to ask Dan questions directly (and you can even engage and interact with other students).
  6. 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).
  7. 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

Posted in Data Modeling, Data Vault, Data Warehouse, Oracle and tagged , , , , , ,
08 Mar 2012
1 Comment

How many kinds of data models can you name?

When someone says they are building a data model, that can mean many different things to many different people. My long-time friend and mentor, Dave Hay, has produced a very helpful and detailed video called “Kinds of Data Models, and How to Name Them.”

It is very useful for not only beginning data modelers but for experienced folks too as it will make you think about the language you use when talking about data models.

Heck, this will be good for managers too – it will help you be much more specific when you are interviewing candidates for data model and data architecture positions.

And, best of all it is free for everyone to watch. Check it out here.

Post it, re-post it, Tweet it. You know the drill…

Later.

Kent

P.S. Stay tuned for a way cool data vault training opportunity. If you have not subscribed to my blog yet, now is the time so you don’t miss this announcement.

Posted in Data Modeling and tagged ,
26 Feb 2012

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?

Posted in Data Modeling, Data Vault, Data Warehouse, Oracle and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
20 Feb 2012
12 Comments

The best FREE data modeling tool ever

Yup, I said FREE!

Oracle just released the latest and greatest version of SQL Developer Data Modeler  (SDDM) and it is free to the world to not only download but to use in your production environment to develop all your models.

As many of you know, I have been using this tool for several years now and have mentioned it many times on various LinkedIn forums (just search for me and check out my activity). I have used SDDM for both Oracle and SQL Server. For forward engineering and reverse engineering. For conceptual, logical, and physical data models.

I think it is a great tool (even if it was not free).

I loved Oracle Designer and got quite good at that, but once shops stopped buying and using Designer (and Oracle pretty much sun-setted the tool), I suffered for a few years using other tools.

I was a very happy camper when Oracle came out with this new data modeling tool. I am even happier now with the new features they have added.

The one I like the most, so far, is the visual editor they added for defining views. The previous version had a decent declarative approach that allowed you to specify tables, columns, and joins, but you could not really “see” the implied data model.

The newest version of SDDM (version 3.1) has added in a visual editor that shows you a diagram of the tables, columns, and joins. So now when you open (or define) a view and press the “query” property button you get drag and drop interface to build the view and a nice visual diagram.

And the best part is when you upgrade your existing models from previous versions, the old views automatically get diagrammed.

To get the best out of the new version you need to run a one time utility labeled “Parse Older Style Views”. You can find that off the right mouse menu in any diagram with views. It runs very fast and basically reads the SQL for your views then parses it out to show up properly in the diagram.

One nice new feature with the parsed views is that if the underlying tables in the view are part of the same design file (hopefully you did not drop those), then the view object on your diagram will now list those tables below all the columns. This is nice because now I do not have to open the view definition to see which tables the view is pulling from.

The other great new feature is the “Test Query” button on the view property dialog.

No more writing views that do not work. You press the button, specify a database connection to use, then the base query for the view fires.

If there is an error in your syntax, or a table you don’t have access to, you find out immediately.

So gone are the days of writing the view in your modeling tools, loging into SQL Plus or SQL Developer, testing the view, having it fail, then going back to SDDM to fix it.

Now you can do agile view development! In one tool!

Neat!

Oh, and if the view works, there is a data tab so you can see the actual data the view will produce – live. Right in the data modeling tool.

Pretty cool.

Nice job guys.

Convinced yet? Head over to the Oracle site and download your own copy and give it try.

UPDATE 2015: Data Modeler is now up to version 4.1 and going strong. Plus now there is an Oracle Press book available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Oracle-Developer-Modeler-Database-Mastery-ebook/dp/B00VMMR9EA/

And I even have a tips and tricks Kindle book out on SDDM. You can find that here.

Let me know what you think in the blog comments.

Talk to you all later.

Kent

P.S. For all the new features in SDDM 4.1 check out the full list over here.

P.P.S Need training on SDDM? Check out my post about my new workshop.

Posted in Data Modeling, Oracle, SQL Developer Data Modeler and tagged , , , , , , , , ,
08 Feb 2012
8 Comments

Is the Data Vault too complex?

This was a very interesting topic that came up on LinkedIn the other day, so I wanted to address it here to.

There seems to be quite a few people who think that Data Vault models are harder to build and manage than what we do today in most shops. So let me explain how I came to learn Data Vault Data Modeling.

Before learning Data Vault, I had successfully built several 3NF OLTP, 3NF DW, and Kimball-style Dimensional data warehouses (and wrote about it with Bill Inmon and Len Silverston in the original Data Model Resource Book).

In other words, I had a reasonable amount of experience in the subject area (data modeling and data warehousing).

I personally found Data Vault extremely easy to learn as a modeling technique (once I took the time to study it a bit). At the time that meant reading the old white papers, attending some lunch & learns with Dan Linstedt and then building a few sample models.

I was definitely skeptical at first (and asked lots of questions at the public lunch & learns). I did not care about MPP, scalability, or many of the other benefits Dan mentioned. I just knew from experience there were a few issues I had seen with the other approaches when it came to building a historical enterprise data store and was hoping Data Vault might be a solution.

In comparison to trying to learn how to design and load a Type 2 slowly changing dimension, Data Vault was a piece of cake (for me anyway).

Once I was convinced, I then introduced the technique to my team in Denver – who had virtually no data warehouse experience.

It was universal – everyone from the modelers to the dbas to the ETL programmers found the technique very easy to learn.

Our investment: One week of training from Dan for 7 people and 3 or 4 days of follow-on consulting where Dan came in once a month (for a day) to do a QA review on our models and load routines and mentor us on any issues we were having.

Dan did not make much $$ off of us. 😦

Since then, I have found that experienced 3NF modelers pick up the technique in no-time flat.

Why is that?

Because Data Vault relies on solid relational principles, experienced 3NF modelers seem to grasp it pretty fast.

Modelers who only have experience with star schemas, on the other hand, seem to have a bit of a hard time with the approach. For some of them it is a paradigm shift in modeling technique (i.e., feels very unfamiliar – “too many tables and joins”),  for others it is almost a dogmatic objection as they were (sadly) taught that dimensional/star was the only “right” way to do data warehousing.

They are just not open to a new approach for any reason (sad but true). 😦

The biggest issue I have seen with clients is a reluctance to try the approach for fear of failure because they don’t personally know anyone (other than me) who has used the approach and because they think it is easier (and cheaper?) to find dimensional modelers.

This happens, even if they agree in concept that Data Vault sounds like a very valid and flexible modeling approach.

As we all know, it takes $$ to train people on star schema design too, so my advice is that if you have a team of people who know 3NF but don’t know dimensional, train them on Data Vault to build your EDW, then hire one or two dimensional modelers to build your end user reporting layer (i.e., data marts) off the Data Vault.

So that’s my 25 cent testimonial. (You get if for free!)

If you want to learn more about Data Vault, check out my presentations on SlideShare or click on the Super Charge book cover (below my picture in the sidebar) to buy the Data Vault modeling book..

Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. How do we get people over the fear of trying Data Vault?

Talk to you later.

Kent

Posted in Data Modeling, Data Vault, Data Warehouse and tagged , , ,

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