In this Fundamentals series of articles, I work through the foundations of data warehousing,
touching on the end user's concerns, the readiness of a business to step up to data warehousing, and
what it takes to manage a data warehouse project. I try to carefully define the pieces of the data
warehouse, and the mainstream techniques including drilling down, drilling across, and handling time
with slowly changing dimensions and three fundamental fact table types. I define facts and
dimensions, surrogate keys, aggregate navigation, and many other basic concepts. And finally, as
much as possible, I try very hard to avoid religious overtones. Fundamentally, as an engineer I like
to build things that work. I have a notebook of practical techniques, and these articles try to
explain those techniques as clearly as possible. — Ralph
