Rating: 
Summary: Good Intro to Concepts and Benefits - Light on Tech
Review: Bill's books are good conceptual books aimed at explaining the Business Benefits and Overall Technical concepts that are fundamental to data warehousing. This book is a classic that people serious about Business Intelligence should read. HOWEVER - Inmon's technical details are light and sometimes generalized, whereas Kimball's books tend to be more nuts-n-bolts and include usable examples. I RECOMMEND (a) read Inmon for how BI environments should be built under ideal situations, (b) read Kimball (warehouse toolkit) for how to do an actual project. For Project Management and Infrastucture issues, read Kimball's "Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit". (c) Read Inmon's Corp Information Factory to understand the BI architecture most companies try to build (whether they know it or not!), and (d) STOP wasting time comparing Inmon to Kimball - their paradigms are complimentary, not contradictory.
CHECK OUT "Data Warehousing Fundamentals" by Paulraj Ponniah - it covers concepts by Inmon, Kimball and other leading thinkers and is very useful when -planning projects, -working with management to explaing BI environments.
Rating: 
Summary: Dwh at the beginning
Review: Data warehouse development relies on a scientific substrate, but usual target reader is not a computer scientist, nor a programmer, rather an advanced user who has to present dwh projects to management. So most books are mainly business-level presentations, and this book is not an exception. It contains some technical issues, more in the form of hints and tips than fully developed solutions, that have nowadays become common and wide-known features. Most books about dwh, OLAP and even mining look like as they have been written some years ago (typically late ninety) in order to present to a wide audience those new disciplines, and then submitted to further and slight revisions to work out new editions. In my experience, user community's skill has grown up, but many publications have not been able to keep its pace.
However, though this does not seem not a mandatory step in a dwh basic education, it still retains all its historical importance.
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Summary: content
Review: Define about data warehous
Rating:
Summary: Sound guidance from the father of Data Warehousing
Review: HelloIf you don't know anything about Data Warehousing and want to know or maybe have some incorrect and preconceived ideas about building a Data Warehouse then this book is for you. The book is deceptively simplistic. Because I would imagine Bill Inmon wanted to be as unabiguous as possible it does become a little tedious at times. Nonetheless, if one were to buy only one book on data warehousing I would say that it would be quite possibly this one. Some critics say that this book is not worth much and cite other authors who have written about Warehousing data. My only comment on this count would be perhaps that people have not understood the content of the book, bought the book by mistake thinking that it was about warehousing something else or know it all i.e. they are Bill Inmon. So yes, if you really want to get the best introduction to building a Data Warehouse then buy this book. Regards Martyn R Jones Director, iniciativa
Rating: 
Summary: outdated DW book, academic
Review: I have read Ralph Kimball's Tool Kit as well as Nicholas Galemmo's Mastering Data Warehouse Design books recently - both are excellent for techno-functional professionals. This book reminds me of a textbook they made you read to have an overview of EDP about 30 years ago...
Rating:
Summary: Pedantic and sluggish
Review: I know the Inmon vs. Kimball thing has turned into something of a feud. Having owned the first and second edition of this particular book (the first edition is now more useful than ever hollowed out with a knife to hide jewelry) and having browsed through the third edition that a colleague purchased, I must say that the major change since the obscure first edition is that Inmon has now taken a much more defensive tone now that Kimball is out there presenting clear, concise and useful real-world concepts and implementation techniques and gathering followers. I also own Inmon's "Using the Data Warehouse", "Data Warehousing and the Zachman Framework", and "Exploration Warehousing" and the question that comes to mind most after reading through these books is why did I waste the money. The reading is difficult, not so much because the subject matter is difficult, but more because it seems to be dry theory and has little advice on how to actually design a real working data warehouse. When later, Kimball came out with his breakthrough book: "The Data Warehouse Toolkit", it all seemed conceptually so much simpler and straightforward.
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Summary: What¿s New in Data Warehousing
Review: I was a little skeptical about what was new to cover in a third edition, but the author really opened my eyes to new ideas that he's pioneering--like integrating data warehouses with ERP systems and using near-line storage techniques for better performance. His ideas about online techniques for customer support were also provocative. Bottom line is that this remains the classic overview of data warehousing. It is still the best and most comprehensive introduction around--and now also the most up-to-date.
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Summary: The bible of DW
Review: if you want to understand the idea of DW, if you tired with Kimball's BS that "set of data marts is the DW" - that is the book for you. Excellent introduction into date warehousing. You read only what you need to know to build a DW - it saves your time. Before I had only Kimball's books and I was thinking - so what is so special in DW? It is just stupid - transform everything to dimensional model and build several data marts - you've done. What are the advantages of this design? It looks like a database with set of subject-oriented views. How this support decision making and analysis? Then I've bought Inmon's book and spent two day reading it - now I know all my answers why DW is good, why we need DW, why it is better than operational database, etc.
Read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Easy reading, great manual
Review: Inmon's approach is obviously born out of experience and consequently displays tremendous insight into the issues of data warehousing. His "design review checklist" is intuitive and makes essential reading for DSS analysts. Nonetheless, some of his diagrams are confusing and tend to be ignored. I would recommend this book to anyone involved in data warehousing as it serves to focus on the issues involved, defines many key terms and makes easy reading.
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Summary: Great Work!! Bill connects the dots in easy-to-follow style
Review: It was easy for me to notice that I have found the perfect book. Bill's style is so simple that even "I" could comprehend after the first reading. I strongly recommend this book and Bill's other articles and books... His book on the Corporate Information Factory is also phenomenal and should form the basis for a novice. I hang out on his website a lot. I'm now familiarizing my self with Bill's Government Information Factory (GIF). Great Work!!
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