The Data Warrior

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Archive for the tag “productivity tips”

30 Sep 2016
1 Comment

Top 3 Tips for Staying Current in the Evolving World of Data Warehousing

The world of data warehousing and analytics has changed! With the advent of Big Data, Streaming Data, IoT, and The Cloud, what is a modern data warehousing professional to do? It may seem to be a very different world with different concepts, terms, and techniques. Or is it?

This is a question I ask myself all the time. So how do you keep up?

Here is what I do:

1 – Follow the Leaders

Yes, social media! Mostly, I use Twitter. I follow the industry thought leaders and analysts like Claudia Imhoff, Tamara Dull, Howard Dresner, Philip Russom, Cindi Howson, and many others. Not only do I see what they are thinking (and speaking) about, but I get to see what they are reading.

2 – Meet the Leaders

While reading books and online articles is great, there is nothing that replaces face to face communication. And the best way to do that is attend educational events where they are speaking. These days that could mean everything from local meet-ups, to regional conferences (like RMOUG), vendor roadshows, and larger annual events (like the recent Oracle OpenWorld).

For meet-ups, simply go to https://www.meetup.com/ and sign up (for free). You can search for meet-ups in your local area by topic. You may be surprised how many there are nearby and how often they have event. This is a great way to network with other professional in your local community.

To learn from the industry leaders, look to larger national and international events. In the data warehousing and analytics world that means groups like The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI). They have local chapters and run larger national events on a regular basis (the next one is in October in San Diego). Another group I am associated with is DAMA International which also sponsors local chapters, national and international events.

And of course your vendors and solution providers may run their own events, like the Snowflake Cloud Analytics city tour.

3- Be a Leader

Volunteer! Yes by getting involved with these meet-ups, associations, and user groups, whether locally or nationally, you not only get to give back to the community, but you will often benefit by getting to know and speak with leaders one on one in a less formal environment.

Start off small by helping organize a meeting, or getting the refreshments. Help with the web site or the mail list. If the group you choose runs a conference, help with the paper selection process (you will learn a ton reading the abstracts). And then, when you are ready, become a speaker yourself. There is no better way to learn than to try to teach what you know to someone else.

I have been helping with user group conferences and events for nearly 30 years now and have never regretted a minute of the time spent.

 

So those are my top 3 tips for how you can stay fresh and informed and ahead of the game in this crazy world of data warehousing, big data, and the cloud.

Seems to be working for me.

Keep Learning!

Kent

The Data Warrior

P.S. One of our Snowflake customers, IAC Publishing Labs (owners of Ask.com), won the TDWI Best Practice award for the Emerging Technologies and Methods category and Keith Lavery will be speaking about the project at the TDWI Executive Summit in San Diego on Monday, October 3rd.

P.P.S.  And don’t forget to follow some of the leaders at Snowflake like @bob_muglia and @jonb_snowflake.

 

Posted in Big Data, Data Warehouse, User Groups and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
16 Mar 2015

Better Data Modeling: The Book

Trying to be as productive as possible during my infrequent down time, I just published another Kindle book with some of my best tips for Oracle Data Modeler. it is called Better Data Modeling: Tips for Enhancing Your Use of Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler.

If you are one of the 3.5 million users (or so) who have downloaded this tool, and you want to know my little secrets for getting the most out of SQL Developer Data Modeler (#SQLDevModeler), this book if for you.

If you were an Oracle Designer user and are looking for a replacement data modeling tool, or you are using one of the other mainstream, expensive modeling tools and want a more cost effective alternative, then you owe it to yourself to look at Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler (SDDM). Oracle Data Modeler has been around for over five years now and is up to version 4.1. It really is an industrial strength data modeling tool that can be used for any data modeling task you need to tackle.

SQL Developer Data Modeler (SDDM) is a fully functional tool provided for FREE by Oracle. It has many features built in that can be leveraged to capture the design of an existing (probably undocumented) database or you can use it to design a new database, even a data warehouse from scratch. There are a load of great features. This book will show you my favorite features along with detailed step by step instructions (with screen shots) on how to use them.

Tips include:

  • How to easily color code your diagrams
  • How to make hundreds of views really fast
  • How to find missing foreign keys
  • How to find missing unique keys
  • How to connect to a SQL Server database (if you must…)

As a bonus, there are two appendices with my run down on common data modeling mistakes and my famous rant on why you need foreign keys in your data warehouse.

So if you don’t use Oracle Data Modeler yet, read my book to see why you should.

If you do use it, I hope this little book will make you even more productive than you already are!

Model on!

Kent

The Data Warrior

P.S. After you read the book, please leave a review on Amazon to help other folks decide if the book is for them.

Posted in Data Modeling, SQL Developer Data Modeler and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
06 Oct 2013
2 Comments

Better Data Modeling: Finding Missing Unique Keys in Oracle #SQLDevModeler

One of the best practices I recommend is to always define unique business keys for every entity (or table) in a model.

It is the only way to really understand what the data in that object represents.

So what do you do when you inherit someone else’s model with hundreds of tables and few (if any) unique keys to be found?

After you reverse engineer it into SDDM (SQL Developer Data Modeler), you could go through the model table by table and look at the properties.

Or, you could look at all the diagrams to look for the the little U’s indicating a column is part of a unique key constraint (assuming there are any diagrams to look at).

Or you could create a Custom Design Rule that checks for you.

So how do you write a design rule that will list all tables with no UKs on them?

Open your design, the go to Tools -> Design Rules -> Custom Rules.

  1. Hit the green Plus sign to add a new rule.
  2. Give it a name (like Missing UKs),
  3. Select Table for the object type,
  4. Mozilla Rhino for the Engine,
  5. Warning for the type, and
  6. Select table as the variable
  7. Past in this code: 
function checkUKs(table){
ruleMessage=””;
if(table.getUKeys().size() == 0){
  ruleMessage=”no UKs”;
  errType=”Problem:”;
  return false;
} else {
  return true;
}
}
checkUKs(table);

Hit Save, then Apply.

The result will be a list of all the tables in your design that do not have any Unique Key Constraints defined.

Now the real work begins – fixing those tables! As you work your way through the model adding the new business keys, you can keep using this report to see which ones you have left, and make sure you don’t miss any.

Get to it my friends!

Kent

The Oracle Data Warrior

P.S. Special thanks to DimitarSlavov  of Oracle for posting the code to answer my question. If you want to see the whole thread go here.

Posted in Data Modeling, Oracle, SQL Developer Data Modeler and tagged , , , , , ,
02 Jun 2013
1 Comment

The 1st Tip is Free: Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler

This year’s ODTUG KScope conference is less than a month away and I am ready to get to New Orleans and meet up with all my friends and colleagues to talk shop and learn some new things.

So in hopes of getting you to attend, I will share with you one of my productivity tips for using SQL Developer Data Modeler (SDDM).

DDL Previewer

I love this tool. I use it every single day in my work building data warehouses for my clients.

Really.

It’s easy – just right click on the table (or view) you want to check and Voila!

Right mouse over object to get preview option

Right mouse over object to get preview option

Once you pick “DDL Preview”, then you get the DDL in another window.

Example of DDL script in Preview Window

Example of DDL script in Preview Window

With this you can:

1. Check the design to see if it is what you wanted/expected.

2. Copy and paste it to a worksheet in SQL Developer where you can then execute it (if you have the rights!).

One more cool thing is that if you leave the DDL window open, you can now click on any other object in the open diagram and instantly see the DDL for that object.

So there you go – really 3 tips for the price of one!

If you want more, I will be presenting my Top 10 SDDM Tips and Tricks at KScope13 in New Orleans in a few weeks. So go register now!

See you in NOLA!

Kent

 

Posted in Data Modeling, ODTUG, Oracle, SQL Developer Data Modeler, User Groups and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

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