Delivering a Relational Data Warehouse

Learn how to design, build, load, and operate a relational data warehouse to support business intelligence (BI) and advanced analytics.

About this course

This computer science course from Microsoft provides learners with the knowledge and skills required to design, implement, and load a relational data warehouse. In this four week course, you’ll learn how to analyze business requirements, design dimension and fact tables, index and partition the data for performance, and create ETL solutions for ongoing loading of the warehouse.

This course is taught with short-form lectures, demonstrations, and interviews with industry experts. Quizzes and hands-on labs, using Microsoft SQL Server 2016 and Azure SQL Database, will help to reinforce your knowledge, practice skills, and solve problems.

Note: To complete the hands-on elements in this course, you will require an Azure subscription and a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X client computer. You can sign up for a free Azure trial subscription (a valid credit card is required for verification, but you will not be charged for Azure services). Note that the free trial is not available in all regions. It is possible to complete the course and earn a certificate without completing the hands-on practices.

Prerequisites

Familiarity with database concepts and basic SQL query syntax
Familiarity with business uses of databases, such as reports and dashboards
A willingness to learn actively and persevere when troubleshooting technical problems is essential

What you'll learn

Map business reporting requirements to logical data entities
Design dimension and fact tables in a star schema
Indexing and partitioning strategies to provide performance and scale
Load the data warehouse with Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) techniques

What you'll learn

Week 1: Introducing the Data Warehouse
This week makes the business case for a data warehouse, explores data warehouse architectures, and plans the initial design of the database used in the course

Week 2: Designing a Relational Data Warehouse Schema
This week introduces the design of dimension tables and fact tables, and explores additional schema design concepts to address data warehouse challenges.

Week 3: Optimizing a Data Warehouse for Scale and Performance
This week introduces the physical design of the data warehouse, including table partitioning, indexes, and in-memory column store indexes.

Week 4: Loading and Maintaining a Data Warehouse
This week emphasizes the loading of data into the warehouse. We’ll introduce the implementation of an enterprise information management strategy to improve the quality of data, and the use of extract, transform and load (ETL) tools to load the warehouse.

Final Exam
The end of the course is comprised of the final exam, which accounts for 50% of your grade and will be combined with the assessments in each module to determine your overall score. You must achieve an overall score of 70% or higher to pass this course and earn a certificate.

Meet the instructors

Peter Myers

Consultant, Trainer and Presenter Bitwise Solutions

Peter Myers is a consultant, trainer and presenter, and has worked with Microsoft database and development products since 1997. Today he specializes in all Microsoft Business Intelligence products and also authors training course content for Microsoft products and services. He has a broad business background supported by a bachelor’s degree in applied economics and accounting, and he extends this with extensive experience backed by current MCSE certifications. He has been a Data Platform MVP since 2007.

Chris Randall

Consultant, Trainer and Presenter Bitwise Solutions

Chris is a trainer, consultant, and author with 25 years of industry experience, specializing in SQL Server and the Microsoft data platform. He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert for the SQL Server Data Platform and Business Intelligence, and works in the Microsoft Learning Experiences team as a senior content developer, where he plans and creates content for developers and data professionals who want to get the best out of Microsoft technologies.