Reddit mentions of The Kimball Group Reader: Relentlessly Practical Tools for Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence

SQL Server Developer, BI Backend Developer, Data Architect, stuff like that.

The Kimball Group Reader (Amazon link, without a referral or whatever) is a must read in the business of DWH and BI. Coincidentally, I haven't read it (impossible to get where I live), so don't ask me for an opinion if it's any good!

> I try to use the same principles of code cleanliness, separation of concerns, etc from .Net dev.

The first thing I imagine when I hear something like that is the person happily converting code into user defined scalar functions (I hope you don't use them). Not all rules from procedural development apply to SQL, remember that!

Believe it or not, attitude is half (if not more) of the battle. Keep doing what you are doing to continuously expand and build upon your skills.

With that said, I cannot stress highly enough taking a look at the Kimball Group Reader. It is chock full of real-world scenarios and is structured in a way that lends itself great to newcomers and seasoned pros alike. I think this will help to supplement what you are learning with the AdventureWorks system at the moment.

Once you familiarize yourself with SQL Server, I would recommend researching Oracle (Database, OLAP, OBIEE) and other technologies to better understand how they are alike, but also how they differ.

A cool way to learn more about data analysis is to try and apply it to something that interests you and expand from there. For example, if you like sports, you can mine football, baseball, etc... statistics for analysis. Find something that interests you and it may help reinforce your learning, especially on the parts that you may not find as satisfying to learn.

My background: I have been in Data Warehousing for about 8 years now and in my current role I flex between an Oracle DBA and DW Architect.

Best of luck to you and continue to strive learning new things!

Awesome! I kind of fell into the job. I was initially hired as a web developer, and didn't even know what BI was, and then got recruited by one of the BI managers and fell in love. To me, it is one of the few places in IT where what you create will directly impact the choices a business will make.

Most of what I do is ETL work (taking data from multiple systems, and loading them into a single warehouse), with a few cubes (multidimensional data analaysis) and SSRS report models (logical data model built on top of a relational data store used for ad hoc report creation). I also do a bit of report design, and lots of InfoPath 2010 + SharePoint 2010 custom development.

We use the entire Microsoft BI stack here, so SQL Server Integration (SSIS), Analysis (SSAS), and Reporting Services (SSRS). Microsoft is definitely up and coming in the BI world, but you might want to try to familiarize yourself with Oracle BI, Business Objects, or Cognos. Unfortunately, most of these tools are very expensive and not easy to get up and running. I would suggest you familiarize yourself with the concepts, and then you will be able to use any tool to apply them.

For data warehousing, check out the Kimball books:

Here and here and here

For reporting, get good with data visualizations, anything by Few or Tufte, like:

Here and here

For integration, check these out:

Here and here

Also, if you're interested in Microsoft BI (SSIS, SSAS, SSRS) check out this site. It has some awesome videos around SSAS that are easy to follow along with.

Also, check out the MSDN BI Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bi/

Currently at work, but if you have more questions, feel free to shoot me a message!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Kimball-Group-Reader-Relentlessly/dp/0470563109

This a great book. Bite size chunks explaining why to do a warehouse and how. Pretty much any Kimball book it seems good.