Data warehousing is one of the hottest topics in the computing industry today. For business executives, it promises significant competitive advantage for their companies, while information systems managers see it as the way to overcome the traditional roadblocks to providing business information for managers and other end users. With the publication of this book comes the most comprehensive, practical guide to designing, building, and implementing a data warehouse on the market today. Barry Devlin--one of the world's leading experts on data warehousing--is also one of the first practitioners in this area. In this book, he distills the insights and experiences gained over 10 years of designing and building data warehouses.Included are: *An explanation of the optimal three-tiered architecture for the data warehouse, with a clear division between data and information *A full description of the functions needed to implement such an architecture, including reconciling existing, diverse data and deriving consistent, valuable business information *A detailed methodology for building a data warehouse in a way that provides business value and strategic infrastructure at each stage *A high-level approach to justifying the effort involved *A view of the organizational aspects of building and maintaining a warehouse This book will become the key reference for any team undertaking the construction of a data warehouse. It is aimed primarily at the IS managers, architects, and designers involved in this process, as well as the end users having a key role in the evolving implementation of the data warehouse. 0201964252B04062001