Guest Columnist: Vincent Rainardi

Continuing with his discussion of how to implement a date dimension in SQL Server Analysis services, expert warehousing expert Vincent Rainardi discusses how to use this dimension as a reference dimension as well as other advanced topics.  Read more...

Data warehousing author and expert, Vincent Rainardi, brings us a new article that looks at one of the most frequently used dimensions in Analysis Services.  Read more...

Business Intelligence expert Vincent Rainardi brings us a new article that looks at how you can profile your data to understand its values and distribution using Integration Services.  Read more...

SELECT statements should be the most popular query in SQL Server, so why are they unpopular? It's the complex, confusing MDX SELECT statement that warehousing expert Vincent Rainardi is writing about.  Read more...

SQL Server 2008 is well on its way to being complete and released with the release of the second CTP recently. There aren't a tremendous number of changes, but one of the more interesting ones is the changes to date and time handling in this new platform. The time and date datatypes have been separated and longtime SQL Server author Vincent Rainardi brings us a short look at how there can be used.  Read more...

Everyone wants to know what a DBA does and it is becoming a hard question to answer as the responsibilities and capabilities of database platforms increase. Longtime author Vincent Rainardi brings us the proposition of a new type fo DBA, one that focuses more on data warehousing.   Read more...

Reporting is one of the key parts of any data warehouse or business intelligence systems. Vincent Rainardi has brought us some great information on data warehousing and now turns his attention to some of the very useful new features in Reporting Services 2005.   Read more...

Usually a data warehouse is used for some sort of Business Intelligence system. Data warehousing experts Vincent Rainardi and Amar Gaddam bring us another great article on warehousing with a look at how a warehouse might be used for a CRM system.   Read more...

Part 3 of Vincent Rainardi's data warehousing series looks at some of the situations and challenges of loading a fact table in a data warehouse.   Read more...

We get Vincent Rainardi's "Data Warehouse Loading Part 2" article taking a look at how you can perform an "upsert" in your data warehouse.   Read more...

Data warehousing is becoming more and more popular, especially as companies seek to leverage the information stored in various systems to improve their business processes. Warehousing expert Vincent Rainardi brings us the next installment of his series on data warehousing, examining the issues of loading data.   Read more...

What type of things do you need to look at when setting up a data warehouse? Hardware is a big one as well as the settings for the server, which may be substantially different than transactional systems most DBAs work with. Warehousing expert Vincent Rainardi brings us the next installment in his data warehousing series with some advice on what you should be looking for.   Read more...

Continuing with his fantastic series on data warehousing. Vincent Rainardi brings us the next installment, which takes a look at upgrading the various components of your data warehousing system.   Read more...

Is a data warehouse required for business intelligence? Are these synonyms for the same concept? Vincent Rainardi brings us the next part of his data warehousing series that examines these two concepts and how they fit into your data analysis infratructure.   Read more...

The fourth part of a great data warehousing series from Vincent Rainardi. This article continues the look are still other methods of extracting data from the source system along with the advantages and disadvantages of each.   Read more...

The third part of a great data warehousing series from Vincent Rainardi looks different methods of extracting data from the source system along with the advantages and disadvantages of each.   Read more...

The second part of a great data warehousing series from Vincent Rainardi looks at the decision to stage data prior to moving it into the warehouse versus directly loading it. This is a must read for those contemplating a data warehouse.   Read more...

Data warehousing is a foreign concept to many DBAs since it is not used very widely in SQL Server. However it can be a very useful tool for your business and new author Vincent Rainardi brings us the first in a series of warehousing articles, this one looking at an operational data store.   Read more...