Rating: 
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: I am a veteran Oracle DW designer and tuning specialist. This is a great book - very easy to read, technically accurate, and comprehensive (an unusual combination!). I can say from experience that the emphasis is in the right places. The Oracle manuals tell you how to do things - this tells you what to do and why. I highly recommend it for any Oracle DBA involved in building a data warehouse.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: I am a veteran Oracle DW designer and tuning specialist. This is a great book - very easy to read, technically accurate, and comprehensive (an unusual combination!). I can say from experience that the emphasis is in the right places. The Oracle manuals tell you how to do things - this tells you what to do and why. I highly recommend it for any Oracle DBA involved in building a data warehouse.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I needed
Review: I finally found the book that explains the technical aspects of building and managing Oracle Data Warehouse in good depth and easy language. I found this book to be very useful in my job of being a Data Warehouse Designer and its a ready reference for using several features of Oracle 8i building/managing Data Warehouses.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book before you start building DW on Oracle!
Review: I found excellent description of this book in Bill Inmon's Foreword - it's written in comprehensible and down-to-earth manner. Both authors, on top of having real world experience on the subject, are also experienced trainers, so it's not a surprise that this book is readable and well organized at the same time.First three chapters cover essentials in data warehousing, hardware architecture, and introduction to Oracle architecture and features. If you are not familiar with either concept, then you'll be glad that you choose this book just for the first three chapters alone! Next four chapters are about designing data warehouse (metadata, star schema,...), building, populating and post-load processing in the data warehouse. If you already have some experience in Oracle8i, then you'll find most techniques described here very familiar (SQL*Plus, SQL*loader, ...) and occasionally even tedious to read. However some tips are really good and worth some patient while reading. Even if you use particular technique on a daily basis, I'm sure, you'll get some new ideas about different possibilities in data warehouse implementation. Next four chapters are covering administration of data warehouse, performance tuning, parallel execution and parallel server. As DBA I liked these chapters the most. Especially chapter on tuning is well presented with just enough detail that you can start exploring the wonders of Oracle RDBMS. Last two chapters are about distributing the Oracle data warehouse (replication, database links,...) and analytical processing (new analytical functions and brief discussion on Discoverer and OLAP with Oracle Express - the product that will soon die). What about the shortcomings of the book? First, you should visit publisher web site and pick errata for the book (btw, it's excellent). In addition to common typos found in most technical books, some sentences doesn't make sense to me, or contradict with some other part of the book. Next, some pictures are over simplistic and as such unnecessary or hard to understand. In general I like the way authors compared features of different version of Oracle through out the book, however sometimes it's obvious that their focus is not Oracle8i, but previous version of Oracle (for example, it's OK to discuss how to set up SORT_DIRECT_WRITES, but only with the reminder to the reader that this parameter is obsolete in Oracle8i). One last reminder, this is *not* all-in one book, it's about essentials and it should be used as roadmap to different Oracle8i features. There is no substitute for official Oracle manuals (you should at least read Oracle Data Warehousing Guide). If you're experienced Oracle DBA/developer, with several years of hands-on experience in data warehousing you'll probably be disappointed with technical details in this book. This is actually a feature of this book, because you already have all technical manuals, you don't need another one. What you probably don't have is 'essential' book like this one that will guide you on the way to build successful data warehouse.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book before you start building DW on Oracle!
Review: I found excellent description of this book in Bill Inmon's Foreword - it's written in comprehensible and down-to-earth manner. Both authors, on top of having real world experience on the subject, are also experienced trainers, so it's not a surprise that this book is readable and well organized at the same time. First three chapters cover essentials in data warehousing, hardware architecture, and introduction to Oracle architecture and features. If you are not familiar with either concept, then you'll be glad that you choose this book just for the first three chapters alone! Next four chapters are about designing data warehouse (metadata, star schema,...), building, populating and post-load processing in the data warehouse. If you already have some experience in Oracle8i, then you'll find most techniques described here very familiar (SQL*Plus, SQL*loader, ...) and occasionally even tedious to read. However some tips are really good and worth some patient while reading. Even if you use particular technique on a daily basis, I'm sure, you'll get some new ideas about different possibilities in data warehouse implementation. Next four chapters are covering administration of data warehouse, performance tuning, parallel execution and parallel server. As DBA I liked these chapters the most. Especially chapter on tuning is well presented with just enough detail that you can start exploring the wonders of Oracle RDBMS. Last two chapters are about distributing the Oracle data warehouse (replication, database links,...) and analytical processing (new analytical functions and brief discussion on Discoverer and OLAP with Oracle Express - the product that will soon die). What about the shortcomings of the book? First, you should visit publisher web site and pick errata for the book (btw, it's excellent). In addition to common typos found in most technical books, some sentences doesn't make sense to me, or contradict with some other part of the book. Next, some pictures are over simplistic and as such unnecessary or hard to understand. In general I like the way authors compared features of different version of Oracle through out the book, however sometimes it's obvious that their focus is not Oracle8i, but previous version of Oracle (for example, it's OK to discuss how to set up SORT_DIRECT_WRITES, but only with the reminder to the reader that this parameter is obsolete in Oracle8i). One last reminder, this is *not* all-in one book, it's about essentials and it should be used as roadmap to different Oracle8i features. There is no substitute for official Oracle manuals (you should at least read Oracle Data Warehousing Guide). If you're experienced Oracle DBA/developer, with several years of hands-on experience in data warehousing you'll probably be disappointed with technical details in this book. This is actually a feature of this book, because you already have all technical manuals, you don't need another one. What you probably don't have is 'essential' book like this one that will guide you on the way to build successful data warehouse.
Rating:
Summary: Previous review (dated February 3, 2000) is for another book
Review: I have to point out that the kind and enthusiastic review from the "Midwest Book Review" dated 03-Feb-2000 is for another book, not this one. Gary and I did not get this book published until September 2000 anyway... But I hope that this book collects reviews just as glowing!
Rating:
Summary: Previous review (dated February 3, 2000) is for another book
Review: I have to point out that the kind and enthusiastic review from the "Midwest Book Review" dated 03-Feb-2000 is for another book, not this one. Gary and I did not get this book published until September 2000 anyway... But I hope that this book collects reviews just as glowing!
Rating:
Summary: Recommended for Oracle8i users
Review: Oracle8i Data Warehousing explains how to design, develop and administer powerful data warehouses and data marts using Oracle's powerful new database Oracle8i. Written by members from the Oracle8i development team, Oracle8i Data Warehousing is an authoritative, user friendly guide to using the latest data warehousing packages and tools in Oracle8i, gaining insights, tips and best practices from the developers who actually helped create the software. Oracle8i Data Warehousing shows how to create "Web warehouses" that enable professionals throughout an organization to access and analyze vital information. Oracle8i Data Warehousing is essential reading for all Oracle users.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Practical Book to Using Oracle*i for Data Warehousing
Review: The heart of data warehousing is the database - Oracle, despite the bugs, is one of the most practical databases for large data repositories. I have designed and installed Oracle data warehouses on Unix (and lately Linux) since the early nineties. The secret to a fulfilling relationship with an Oracle database set-up is knowing which stable Oracle release to use and the suitability with the operating platform. Essential Oracle 8i Data Warehousing is focused on giving readers an objective understanding of using Oracle for implementing data warehousing repositories. This book is better suited to technical users, who already have some understanding of Oracle, about to embark on the data warehousing process. This is not a book that is heavy on the side of data warehousing design nor dimensional modeling. There are other books that serve these subject areas well. Please let me know if you have found this review helpful.
Rating:
Summary: Great coverage of the essentials
Review: This book has everything: a brief, high-level, overview of oracle "concepts" like background processes, sga, init parameters, etc. and, ultimately, as its name implies, a good, solid overview of 8i features, tools, and enhancements to make designing, loading, monitoring, and querying large Oracle databases (I think the term "data warehouse" is something of a misnomer) almost, well, FUN. I highly recommend it over Oracle's own, fragmented, documentation and immediately proceeded to partition my large, date-stamped, tables. Mr. Dodge, et al, have raised the bar for successful database projects. Kudos all around.
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