Getting Started with Learning About Data Warehousing

Read up on some fundamental technical topics

If you are technical, you may find you will be greatly helped by reading up on SQL queries (especially multi-table and summary queries and subqueries), database indexing, join processing, and how query optimization works. The latter knowledge will most likely be found in books aimed at DBAs for specific commercial databases. This knowledge will help you even if you are not in a DBA role. - If you are not technical, you can still read primers on SQL and database design.

Visit a couple of organizations that have had data warehousing systems in production for over a year

You will get an excellent education if you can ask an organization who 'has done it' what are the biggest issues it faced in developing systems and what are the biggest issues it faces in maintaining systems. Also, ask what the organization felt it did right and what it felt it could have done differently. I believe that if you do this you will learn a great deal aspects of data warehousing that do not get discussed much in the literature - specifically the politics of data warehousing projects, the maintenance burdens data warehousing imposes, and how to deal with data warehousing software/hardware vendors and consultants. If you cannot visit other organizations, try going to vendor road shows or data warehousing conventions and talk with people with real experience with data warehousing. To repeat the point just made, too much about data warehousing goes unsaid by the media, the books, the vendors, and the consultants.

Download a trial copy of a query tool and an OLAP tool or an open source or free tool

Look for tools with sample data that you can experiment with on your own. The sample data is sure to highlight the tool's selling point. However, by playing with the tools you can get a feel of what companies use these tools for in real life.

Read this site

While this whole site is geared to the person getting started, the essays on a definition of data warehousing, the case for data warehousing, the case against data warehousing, aspects of data warehousing architecture, a definition of decision support, and what decision support tools are used for may be especially useful to a person new to the field.

Read the books "Building the Data Warehouse" by W. H. Inmon and "The Data Warehouse Toolkit" by Ralph Kimball

With due respect to all the other fine books on data warehousing and decision support, when read in combination I believe these two books provide a great introduction to and overview of the strategic and tactical issues system developers face - even though the original version of these books are over ten several years old. Despite what you read in the trade media, the basics of data warehousing do not change that much. Especially valuable are Inmon's overall overview and description of the iterative nature of data warehouse development and Kimball's description of data modeling principles and query/report tools. If you want to read further, check out Kimball's other books. Kimball stands out as a writer who is both substantive and easy to read. Finally, if you want a 10,000 foot, non-technical view of data warehousing in the business, read "Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning" by Thomas Davenport

Build something!

Computer texts love to cite a (supposedly) Confucian quote "What I hear I forget. What I see I remember. What I do I understand." Well, this quote is apt in the case of learning about data warehousing. After you build something, no matter how modest, you will gain a more profound appreciation of the topic.