The Unified Star Schema: An Agile and Resilient Approach to Data Warehouse and Analytics Design

"The Unified Star Schema" introduces a significant leap forward in the realm of business intelligence data modeling. My journey with this book began when I sought solutions to escape the chasm trap. Upon discovering this innovative methodology, I immediately applied it to some of my data models, and the results were remarkable.This book offers an exploration of data warehousing and star schema design, presented in a well-organized and accessible manner. The author skillfully avoids excessive jargon and technical complexities, making the content approachable for readers of all backgrounds. Whether you're a newcomer or a seasoned professional, you'll find this book enlightening. What truly distinguishes this book is the Puppini Bridge methodology, a groundbreaking solution that addresses the very issues that have long plagued traditional dimensional data modeling. The author's ability to identify and resolve these challenges is outstanding, positioning this methodology as a paradigm shift and establishing Mr. Puppini as a leading innovator in the data modeling industry.I wholeheartedly recommend this book to individuals at all levels of expertise, from beginners to advanced practitioners. It serves as a transformative resource for data architects, engineers, analysts, and anyone seeking to optimize their data warehousing solutions. The book not only provides easily comprehensible examples but also includes multiple use cases and explanations of the chasm trap and fan trap, two persistent issues in traditional data modeling patterns. Beyond its practical value, the book has enriched my personal experience as a data analyst by fostering constructive engagement with colleagues in the application and assessment of the USS methodology. Embracing this innovative methodology in your next BI project is sure to ignite meaningful conversations among your peers while challenging conventional thinking.

This is an excellent book that clearly articulates some common problems with modern BI tools and demonstrates the importance of tools that use associations rather than traditional joining techniques. Puppini provides easy to follow examples, straightforward definitions, and even in some cases applies names to challenges that I had no name for in the past.The solution may not be a one size fits all solution, but this book I hope will start a dialogue about modeling issues that modern BI tools do not address. These issues plague most developers, and now we have names, definitions, and examples to use in the future that may drive tools to improve.This book is an excellent reference that I feel I will refer to often.

The examples did not look practical. It would have been good if the examples reflected a real and a more complex usecase.

This book is a breath of fresh air!In giving careful forensic attention to phenomena which have bedeviled business intelligence practitioners since the dawn of the Relational Model, Francesco Puppini has conceived a novel modeling solution in terms of its simplicity, flexibility and potential for broad application.Moreover, in treating of these phenomena in earnest, fundamental deficiencies with the more traditional design methodologies are made all the more conspicuous, most notably the Kimball dimensional approach.As ambitious as it was to offer a comprehensive, innovative and systematic solution, the Kimball methodology did not go far enough or deep enough at the theoretical level to adequately address these phenomena. But the Unified Star Schema as laid out in this book finally does just that, and in doing so proposes a groundbreaking paradigm of a solution.It should be noted that the Unified Star Schema is not appropriate for all use cases, and this initial exposition warrants some further delineation with respect to its technical implementation.Nevertheless, this should be required reading for any data professional aiming to deliver self-service BI analytics and reporting. Francesco Puppini is a gracious interlocutor and an integral thinker - one who does not settle for hand-waving explanations or contrived solutions - and this shines through in the book. I look forward to seeing the USS paradigm take hold and catch fire across the spectrum of data-driven disciplines.

Two months ago, whilst preparing for a presentation on the timeless techniques of data warehousing, I discovered this book at it reminded me of that saying: "Unlearn, Relearn & Learn."The presentation focussed on ensuring that the data model supported the questions that were going to be asked of the data.One of the fundamental challenges that the author introduces is that the model should be able to support all the possible questions that could be asked and not just the ones that were specified in the business requirements. This is a major shift in our thinking about dimensional data modelling.If you have spent years of implementing dimensional data models and have learnt about all the possible traps, you can get into with additive, semi-additive and non-additive measure and haven't adjusted your data models to prevent this; then this book is for you!Basically, your model can avoid all these traps and support requirements changes better than existing dimensional models.This book will show you how!I was very fortunate to be able to contact the author, Francesco Puppini, now know as the architect of the "Puppini Bridge."Francesco spent several hours helping me unlearn, relearn and learn. An exercise that I was very grateful for.

It is awesome book! It provides theoretical and practical overview of data marts (which in practical BI world people mix the definitions views and datamarts), and introduce new concept of building BI data models that eliminates many mistakes due to duplications in SQL, makes simple and flexible tables connection to satisfy and end user requirements on 80%, reduces data transformations caused by adhoc requests. I personally tried this approach for BI project, and it gave awesome results. Read this book carefully to grasp the idea. Highly recommend.

Le non "Unified star schema" porte à confusion car ça n'a rien à voir avec un star schéma. Je préfère l'appeler "Puppini's Bridge". Mais c'est très intéressant comme approche, une sorte de "data vault pour les nuls", car plus simple à implémenter.C'est intéressant pour les cas où le modèle source à trop de relations et où les besoins clients sont un flous. Donc, ça offre un modèle plus simple pour que les analystes fassent ce qu'ils veulent sans trop de risque d'avoir des problèmes comme de doublons et fausses mesures.Difficile à convaincre les autres analystes habitués à star schéma ou data vault mais je trouve très intéressante comme idée par sa simplicité.

For years, we have been struggling to get end users to build their own reports in our BI solutions, since they always have to play with aggregation selection (normal sum or associative sum), or combine data using UNION statements inside the report...Experienced developers are able to build all the necessary reports, but this way of working keeps the data away from the end user (or even key users)This book explains the causes of these problems and provides a solution with the Puppini Bridge. Very well written, very clear and enough examples ... Recommended for people who fell in the fan trap, chasm trap or any other data trap :)

A brilliant and clear methodology that shows you, step-by-step, how to avoid the common reporting pitfalls that prevent real self-service data analysis and data driven business decisions.Who is this book for? (Not only for DWH practioners) - Managers: It's easy enough to understand that your data nirvana is at reach, just don't get stuck with old-school ad-hoc SQL based tools / dated data-architecture - Data must flow like water. - Business Analysts: Don't be fooled by unnecessary technical complications. On top of an USS you can ask whatever business question without re-wiring the data. - Data Scientists: A must read - if you have underachieved, reading this book you'll understand your foundation were likely wrong. - Data Engineers: Well, have you really understood what a Chasm Trap is? Or can you define a Fan trap? Have you noticed that loops are possible in transactional schemas but ambiguous for reporting? Do you really know how joins work? ...do you really? - BI Practioners: Good news - the USS is for you and your in-memory applications, even without a DWH is the to-go approach for all your tools (and what the heck is an in-memory Association / how does it differ from a join?) - For whomever have read Flatland - the world is not flat - and so is data.The book is catchy but deep. I'd recommend to read every sentence twice, and when you have read it all, read again!Not because the book is difficult, on the contrary - but I believe that the truth (regarding Reporting Data Modelling) has been hidden in plain sight for decades.A revelation.

Data modeling in the Data Warehouse and reporting has been a bit stiff for a long time. Data Vault has become a bit more mature and popuiar recently, but on reporting side developers stick to the long-standing Kimball model with all its problems. The author presents problems and data traps that wait for unaware developer, explains these traps in simple way with examples. Then comes the Unified Star Schema - approach that allows avoiding all these problems.I like the idea, find it simple, clear and promising. I hope I can use it soon.The book explains all elements clearly, its maybe a little long in some paragraphs, some parts are explained too much.Even so, such a new idea deserves five stars.