Data Modeling Book Recommendations...

Question

I'm looking for book recommendations on data modeling for both OLTP and OLAP type databases. So both the application database and the data warehouse. I've been working with relational databases for a while now and I think I have the basic relational theory down, but I'm looking for more practical guides that can relate to the theory. All recs welcome.

Answer 1

Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design by Scott Ambler

Answer 2

The Relational Database class I took in college used this textbook by David Kroenke. I used to curse this book and it's RIDICULOUSLY long practice cases that our professor assigned us to complete in only a week, but now I cannot thank him enough for the solid textbook he put together.

This book is very theoretical but I learned so much about not only designing databases in a logical way, but also designing them in a manner that my entire applications' performance would see benefits. I've become a very good and comfortable with databases over the 2 years of my professional career, and I cannot recommend this textbook enough. This book will happily have a place in my cube's library for many years to come.

Answer 3

Kimball wrote the book on dimensional modelling, which is typically good for data warehousing which is heavily statistical or financial. If you aren't a Kimballite, then there are Inmon's books, too.

Answer 4

The book that was heavily recommended at the time I learned relational modeling was Database Design for Mere Mortals by Michael Hernandez. It gives an excellent step-by-step guide to learning how to model databases. Recently it seems that the go-to book has changed to Database Modeling and Design: Logical Design by Teory, Lightstone and Nadeau. They also have a book on physical database design titled Physical Database Design: the database professional's guide to exploiting indexes, views, storage, and more. These cover both traditional relational databases as well as data warehouses.