Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wife, Chris, for her unflagging support during the past twenty years. Chris has been a constant source of encouragement, guidance, and good counsel.

I would also like to thank Malcolm Standring and Richard Getliffe of Hewlett Packard Consulting for inviting me to join their Data Warehousing practice in 1995. Although I was already deeply involved in database systems, the role in HP has opened doors to many new and exciting possibilities.

Thank you, Mike Newton and Prof. Pat Hall of the Open University, for your technical guidance over several years.

As far as the book is concerned, thanks are due to Chris, again, for helping to tighten up the grammar. Thanks especially to Jim Meyerson, of Hewlett Packard, for a rigorous technical review and helpful suggestions.

Finally, I am grateful to Jill Pisoni and the guys at Prentice Hall for publishing this work.