Training Kit (Exam 70-463): Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (Englisch) Taschenbuch – 15. Dezember 2012

After being impressed by the 70-461 book and passing the exam with flying colours, I thought I would give this one a shot. Boy was I wrong. This book is beyond bad and you will need to allocate a few hours per chapter just to get through some of the mistakes in it:

- First of all, even if you follow the instructions in the exercises from chapter 3 and onwards step by step, the SSIS packages won't run. At first you may think you've made a mistake somewhere but even the solutions in the Solutions folder don't run because they are full of design flaws.
- The language used is extremely ambigious and can be interpreted in different ways. It's easy to get confused even if you have considerable experience with DWs and SSIS.
- Some of the instructions are simply wrong and the prerequisites are not stated. For example, the instructions on installing MDS in chapter 15 are missing several key points.

I could go on but it suffices to say that I am extremely disappointed in Microsoft's using this book as the official preparation for the 70-463 exam. It's a very sloppy job and if you have an alternative, please use another book.

I'm just a third of the way through this book - it is almost entirely about SSIS, and it gently introduces this dimension to SQL Server. The structure is great, and you get taken smoothly along the learning curve. The text of the book is well edited, with few mistakes to distract your learning.
The exercises are well structured as well, but don't expect the samples "answers" supplied to always work. The authors need to test the samples. But, the supplied answers are close, and fixing those last few bugs is a learning opportunity that probably closely reflects what happens outside the classroom. Still, I would prefer a more controlled learning experience (that is why I bought this book).
So - top marks for the great structure, with excellent review questions, exercises, and case study questions.
The code samples clearly missed a QC step, so I would knock half a star off for that. But, I like the clarity and structure of the book, so I'm sticking with 5 stars. Note this review is based only the first third of the book - I'll update it if the remainder changes my perspective.
Update at the three quarters mark - the end is in sight!
The coverage of SSIS has been pretty good, which covers the majority of this book. The sections on Data Quality Services (DQS) and Master Data Services (MDS) are much weaker.
A source of frustration in this book - the exercises/code are uniformly lacking in testing, and there are bugs galore. I reported a couple of dozen errata for this book, but I just didn't bother with identifying bugs for the exercises/code. This is a distraction, as the exercises either take much longer (due to time spent figuring out and fixing the bugs), or you are tempted just to skip making the exercise work. I know rigorous testing is boring and time consuming, but the exercises can be so helpful and important (that is why they are a part of every lesson).
In summary - a great book for SSIS, not so great for DQS/DMS, and weak on the exercise front.

After spending an hour trying to debug why I was unable to get through a particular exercise in the book, I figured out that there were quite a few issues with the way Tables were built as per the book, and there were missing steps that I needed to guess at to get to work.

The information may be reasonably accurate, but it gets very frustrating trying to troubleshoot an issue only to realize you did everything as specified, but the steps were wrong.

The book is well organized and covers the huge topic of Data Warehousing in great detail. If you need a reference with hands-on examples of how to get things done--this book will get you up-to-speed and on track in no time. The practice exercises are well thought-out and provide invaluable guidance towards learning a broad and difficult subject. The nearly 800 pages are organized into 20 Chapters that cover each topic in detail. Each topic has 1 - 3 Lessons with an estimated completion time. I counted 56 Lessons with an estimated time of 45 hours. Add sample questions for each lesson and Case Studies for each Chapter and I suggest you plan on at least 60 hours to cover the book. The book covers SSIS in great detail including the new Deployment model which is essential. It offers only an introduction to Data Quality Services and Master Data Services but together with the exercises, that's enough to get through installation and a few examples. The book finishes with an intro to Data Mining and some nice examples of Advanced Data Quality with DQS Cleansing and Fuzzy Transforms. Get this book if you want/need to implement a Data Warehouse.

Now having said that, you will need to factor in the horrible state of the practice content. About 1/2 of the practice exercises don't work as presented. I have a good bit of experience in this field and managed to get through almost every exercise. But it was a struggle. I'd estimate that I spent at least 10 additional hours troubleshooting and cleaning up code. Much of the code is SSIS and quite a few packages (including the "Solution" packages)are blank! Some packages build on others as you progress through the lessons, so you might try jumping ahead to find some working code.

Now let's discuss the sample questions and included practice tests. I made sure that I understood every Chapter Lesson Question and all 186 Practice Test Questions thoroughly. Took the test and scored 628. Bummer. The Cert Exam is nothing like the practice material provided in the book. I went through the entire book a second time and purchased another practice exam (Thanks MS for the 2nd Shot) and passed ok.

If you are comfortable with this topic, can troubleshoot/debug code and/or want a great reference book--This does the job. I keep the pdf version handy for on-the-job reference. If you are new to this topic and/or looking to get your MCSA (this was the final exam for me) you might want to look elsewhere. I struggled with a rating. Clearly the authors put a lot into this book, but it was a disastrous training kit. Good Luck.

The book is well organized and has good exercises. The issue I am facing is that the promised source code and things like text files you are supposed to import are not on the CD and not on the O'Reilly site either! I hope this is fixed quickly.