Data Reading Club #2

Back to the Future: Where Dimensional Modeling Enters the Modern Data Stack by Tony Dahlager and John Barcheski

Data warehouses are dead, some would say. Do not be so eager to dismiss them, Tony Dahlager and John argue in their talk. In fact, data warehouses have a logical place in the modern data architecture, and especially the Kimball dimensional modeling approach.

This talk is to some extent focuses on dbt (and has many references to some cool afterparty that Tony and John are supposed to be attending after their talk ??).

And while I do not work with dbt (nor was at the event nor the afterparty they keep talking about), I still found the talk very much relevant. I found it reassuring to hear that dimensional modeling is still very much in, and it was also easy to understand how to approach dimensional modeling.

?? 2 main takeaways for me:

1. Business processes are at the center of data modeling exercises
2. Building wide tables on top of a data warehouse is totally fine. Wide tables are not always a bad thing.

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?#datareadingclub?series is a weekly LinkedIn newsletter aimed at sharing a short list of thought-provoking material that I came across that week. The list is not limited to reading material, but also includes podcasts, video clips etc.