Back in May Dan Morgan was kind enough to invite me to do a guest lecture at the University of Washington about “Data Warehousing Basics.”  After having emailed these slides as a decent overview to a few customers lately, I realized they’d probably be useful online.  It is obviously a little light on content (their just slides) but they do provide some good “high level views” of dimensional modeling/DW/BI in general.  My employer, Pentaho, was generous enough to allow me time to build this presentation for the students at UW for which they, and I are grateful.  THANK YOU!

The online version: Univerisity of Washington Guest Lecture May 9
The PDF of the presentation:  University_of_Washington_Guest_Lecture_May_9.pdf

My cliffs notes:
 - If you’re doing a BI or DW project find “that guy” with the MS Access database or Excel jockey that sits outside the COO’s office.  Make him your BEST BEST friend.
 - Facts are “What” / Dimensions are “How”  Good graphics that drive the point home:

and

Thanks to Matt Casters for leeting me pillage some of his graphics and slides.