The door is open — Data Vault Resources
My journey into the world of Data Vault started in 2019 when I first read Kent Graziano’s blog that mentioned Data Vault methodology and its ability to be successfully implemented on Snowflake. Being the typical engineer that I am, I googled it. To my disappointment I did not find all that much information about Data Vault. As if all of it was truly hidden … in a vault.
Here is a list of resources that I came across over the past 3 years. This is not a comprehensive list of everything. This is just my go to list that has supported my learning journey of Data Vault.
Online resources
Data Vault Alliance This is the home base. This is where Dan Linstedt keeps everyone up to date with the latest Data Vault advancements. You will find that some content is available for a fee. There is also a lot of free content like blogs and some sessions from the previous conferences. A few of last year’s WWDVC presentations are available for viewing, just click on the sessions with hyperlinks.
Snowflake Data Vault and Snowflake are better together. Snowflake’s team put together a list of resources about running Data Vaults on Snowflake with some best practices and user stories.
Data Vault Innovators — is a very experienced team of Data Vault practitioners. I have a challenge making the meetings run by this team due to the time difference as they are in New Zealand/Australia area I am on the East Coast in North America. But I’ve heard Nols speak before and I highly recommend signing up anyway.
Scalefree. You will find webinars, blogs, and newsletters from Michael Olschimke and his team. I was especially excited to see a series of blogs covering modern data stack with meltano singer taps, and dbt.
Books
Building a Scalable Data Warehouse with Data Vault 2.0
Written by Daniel Linstedt and Michael Olschimke. It’s a little bit outdated and some standards have evolved since it was published, but I would still recommend this book as a must read for anyone exploring or working with the Data Vault methodology
Written by Patrick Cuba. This is the newest and very comprehensive book with great illustrations and code examples. I found it easier to have this book in a digital form that allowed me to zoom into images.
Written by John Giles. This book is focused on the modeling aspect of the Data Vault methodology and provides a lot of practical advice.
An Introduction to Agile Data Engineering Using Data Vault 2.0
Written By Kent Graziano. This book is small but mighty. It is incredibly easy to read because it’s very succinct and all of the important parts and key words are highlighted. Kent is a pro at the art of visual story telling and writing.
User Groups
Run by Neil Strange and his team from Datavault UK. I have not missed a single meeting since this group went virtual due to Covid and I can tell you that I learn something at every single one of them.
Previously recorded meetups can be found on youtube
Follow them on LinkedIn
Data Modeling Meetup Munich (DM3)
Run by Christian Kaul from Obaysch. While this user group is not dedicated exclusively to the Data Vault methodology, understanding modeling approaches is important and this group discusses Data Vault modeling amongst others. This group is based in Germany but many meetups are in English.
You can find previously recorded meetups on youtube
Snowflake Data Vault User Group
Maybe I am a tiny bit biased because I help out with this user group. But it’s my most favorite one both because Data Vault and Snowflake are better together and because the team at Snowflake that supports the community are some of my favorite people. Even if you are not a Snowflake user, don’t let it stop you from joining this group. Data Vault methodology is platform agnostic and many topics discussed are applicable to other platforms as well.
North American Data Vault User Group
The newest Data Vault user group with a very passionate team behind it. I am very excited for this one and the content they are delivering.
Forums
https://forum.ukdatavaultusergroup.co.uk/
It’s managed by the same amazing team from Datavault UK. The forum is completely free and you will see many Data Vault thought leaders and practitioners participating in discussions. It might be a little daunting to ask questions in a public forum. But always remember that “the only stupid question is the one that is not asked”.
Slack
There are a few slack communities that have channels dedicated to Data Vault.
This community is managed by the team from dbt labs. And as a result there is a decent amount of dbt specific content. However, this slack is also a community of data professionals discussing everything data related from tools, to different types of modeling, leading data teams, and the most important subject of all — memes. This is one of my favorite places to lurk around and learn about modern data stack.
Did I mention that Data Vault and Snowflake are better together? Maybe a few times. This community could help answer questions about Data Vault and Snowflake in general and Data Vault running on Snowflake in particular. Join it, don’t be shy. We are better, stronger, and smarter as a community.
Brought to us by the developers of dbtvault also known as the amazing Datavault UK team. While it’s focused on Data Vault implementations using dbtvault, Neil often provides very thoughtful responses that are related to Data Vault methodology. I am sure you observed a pattern in my recommendations to join all communities. Every single one is a place to learn.
Thought Leaders
Kent Graziano — the man, the legend, the Data Warrior. Kent recently retired from his role as the Chief Technical Evangelist at Snowflake. But can the Data Warrior really retire? I selfishly hope not.
Kent blogs at https://kentgraziano.com/, shares valuable content on linkedin and answers forum questions.
Patrick Cuba — It’s hard to express the amount of Patrick’s contribution to the Data Vault community in a short paragraph. He wrote a book and many blogs on the subject. He answers questions on slack and forums, and his Snowflake Data Vault demos are some of the best I’ve seen.
Find Patrick on Medium, linkedin, and more linkedin.
Tools
Data Vault methodology is pattern based. To truly see its potential, a Data Vault implementation will require automation. There are a few automation tools both open source and commercial. And as with any tool, make sure to evaluate more than one and pick what fits your use case the best.
Dbtvault
https://www.data-vault.co.uk/dbtvault/
Diepvries
An open source automation tool created by the team at Picnic
https://github.com/PicnicSupermarket/diepvries
Unnamed :)
Roeland Vos wrote a few articles about templates and automation.
https://roelantvos.com/blog/simple-etl-generation-series/
Wherescape
https://www.wherescape.com/solutions/automation-software/
DataVault Builder
https://datavault-builder.com/
Vaultspeed
Ellie
Logical Data Modeling tool.
Training
Data Vault trainers go through a very rigorous process before they get to teach. Be rest assured that you will get the best training possible when you sign up for any of these bootcamps
Data Vault Alliance keeps a very handy calendar with all of the upcoming Data Vault training. But let me break each out out into their own links.
Datarebels
I took this training. Cindi’s energy, passion, positive attitude, and knowledge are equal to none.
https://datarebels.net/course-schedule/
PerformanceG2
https://www.performanceg2.com/
Scalefree
https://www.scalefree.com/datavaulttrainings/
Certus Solutions
https://www.certussolutions.com/datavault/training
Did I miss anyone or anything? Let me know in comments.
