Where to start multidimensional data warehousing (SQL Server 2008 & VS2010)

I am new to this concept...

I have some theoretical knowledge on data warehousing, but I don't know where to start the multidimensional data warehousing...

So please give some s开发者_C百科uggestions regarding about

• where to start
• which is (tool or stuff) suitable for multidimensional data warehousing.

In my system I have

• SQL Server 2008(SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU.exe,SQLEXPR_x86_ENU.exe)
• Visual Studio 2010(10.0)

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Firstly be aware that a Data Warehouse is one component of a Business Intelligence solution. Other components include the presentation layer and integration layers. You should be thinking about the whole solution before you begin building part of it.

Next, what do you mean by "multidimensional"? Different people may understand different things from this. It could mean you want to support a tool like Analysis Services that have their own "cube" model. Or it could mean you are considering a Kimball-style "dimensional" design for your data warehouse.

When you feel you have enough information to start designing the actual warehouse database, you can start much as you would any other database design. Identify attributes, keys and dependencies and design a data model to at least Boyce-Codd / 5th Normal Form. I suggest you study a good book first if you haven't done this before. You also need to take into account considerations like conforming data from different sources, assigning surrogate keys and modelling changing data.

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Where to start, if you have all the knowledge?

• Create the databases.
• Start making on the schema.

Tools most suitable depend.

• For data storage: SQL Server
• For the queries / markts / the warehouse.... SQL Server Analysis Service

You most likely will have 2 databases and a set of cubes - most people / projects split off Staging and the final database model.