SQL for Data Analytics

Take your first steps to becoming a fully qualified data analyst by learning how to explore complex datasets

Key Features

• Master each concept through practical exercises and activities
• Discover various statistical techniques to analyze your data
• Implement everything you’ve learned on a real-world case study to uncover valuable insights

Book Description

Every day, businesses operate around the clock, and a huge amount of data is generated at a rapid pace. This book helps you analyze this data and identify key patterns and behaviors that can help you and your business understand your customers at a deep, fundamental level.

SQL for Data Analytics, Third Edition is a great way to get started with data analysis, showing how to effectively sort and process information from raw data, even without any prior experience.

You will begin by learning how to form hypotheses and generate descriptive statistics that can provide key insights into your existing data. As you progress, you will learn how to write SQL queries to aggregate, calculate, and combine SQL data from sources outside of your current dataset. You will also discover how to work with advanced data types, like JSON. By exploring advanced techniques, such as geospatial analysis and text analysis, you will be able to understand your business at a deeper level. Finally, the book lets you in on the secret to getting information faster and more effectively by using advanced techniques like profiling and automation.

By the end of this book, you will be proficient in the efficient application of SQL techniques in everyday business scenarios and looking at data with the critical eye of analytics professional.

What you will learn

• Use SQL to clean, prepare, and combine different datasets
• Aggregate basic statistics using GROUP BY clauses
• Perform advanced statistical calculations using a WINDOW function
• Import data into a database to combine with other tables
• Export SQL query results into various sources
• Analyze special data types in SQL, including geospatial, date/time, and JSON data
• Optimize queries and automate tasks
• Think about data problems and find answers using SQL

Who this book is for

If you're a database engineer looking to transition into analytics or a backend engineer who wants to develop a deeper understanding of production data and gain practical SQL knowledge, you will find this book useful. This book is also ideal for data scientists or business analysts who want to improve their data analytics skills using SQL.

Basic familiarity with SQL (such as basic SELECT, WHERE, and GROUP BY clauses) as well as a good understanding of linear algebra, statistics, and PostgreSQL 14 are necessary to make the most of this SQL data analytics book.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding and Describing Data
2. The Basics of SQL for Analytics
3. SQL for Data Preparation
4. Aggregate Functions for Data Analysis
5. Window Functions for Data Analysis
6. Importing and Exporting Data
7. Analytics Using Complex Data Types
8. Performant SQL
9. Using SQL to Uncover the Truth – a Case Study

Jun Shan is an expert information technology professional who has been designing and implementing data management systems for more than 20 years. He also teaches SQL and Relational Database at Columbia University in the City of New York and Saint Peter's University. He completed his Master of Science in Computer Science from Virginia Tech and is currently a solution architect in a top 3 cloud computing service provider.

Matt Goldwasser is the Head of Applied Data Science at the T. Rowe Price NYC Technology Development Center. Prior to his current role, Matt was a data science manager at OnDeck, and prior to that, he was an analyst at Millennium Management. Matt holds a bachelor of science in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Cornell University.

Upom Malik is a data science and analytics leader who has worked in the technology industry for over 8 years. He has a master's degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Duke University. As a data scientist, Upom has overseen efforts across machine learning, experimentation, and analytics at various companies across the United States. He uses SQL and other tools to solve interesting challenges in finance, energy, and consumer technology. Outside of work, he likes to read, hike the trails of the Northeastern United States, and savor ramen bowls from around the world.

Benjamin Johnston is a senior data scientist for one of the world's leading data-driven MedTech companies and is involved in the development of innovative digital solutions throughout the entire product development pathway, from problem definition to solution research and development, through to final deployment. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in machine learning, specializing in image processing and deep convolutional neural networks. He has more than 10 years of experience in medical device design and development, working in a variety of technical roles, and holds first-class honors bachelor's degrees in both engineering and medical science from the University of Sydney, Australia.