Pro SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services offers an in-depth look into the latest and greatest suite of analytic tools from Microsoft. This book will help you create business intelligence (BI) solutions that improve your company's analysis and decision making by focusing on practical, solution-oriented application of the technologies available in SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services (SSAS).
Using the examples and exercises in this book, you will further your understanding of online analytical processing (OLAP), BI, data mining, and SSAS itself. New SSAS features are also explained, including the Management Data Warehouse (MDW), dynamic management views (DMVs), and Aggregation Designer. Improvements to the Cube and Dimension Designers are also covered.
Chapters 1 and 2 introduce you to OLAP, and to the key concepts that are termed cubes, dimensions, and measures. With that foundation laid, Chapters 3 and 4 introduce you to what SQL Server provides. You'll get your first look at Analysis Services and its administration interface. Chapters 5 through 7 show you how to design and build a cube for analysis. The cube is the focal point of Analysis Services. Once you've created a cube, Chapter 8 shows how to deploy it for use.
After you've deployed a cube, it is available for you and other analyists to query. It is partly through queries that one examines and analyzes the data at one's disposal. To that end, Chapter 9 is devoted to Multidimensional Expressions (MDX), which is the query language underpinning Analysis Services solutions.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are at the heart of every BI solution. In Chapter 10, you will learn how to define, create, and use these metrics. Chapter 10 also introduces you to perspectives, actions, and calculated members.
Data-mining algorithms enable you to sift through huge amounts of historical data, and create predictions based on trends and patterns. Working through Chapter 11, you will learn how to use data mining to create, execute, and validate a prediction model. Chapter 11 will also introduce you to Microsoft's Data Mining Extensions (DMX) language.
PowerPivot is an exciting set of technologies that provide powerful BI abilities to all business users. By integrating with Office 2010, your users can perform complex analysis and data mining on their workstations. Using SSAS language translation and automated currency conversions greatly enhances the usability of your company's data across the enterprise.
Finally, Chapter 13 offers important information for SSAS administrators. To effectively manage SSAS at the server level, you need to understand processing tasks and options, the SQL Server Profiler, the Performance Monitor, scheduling, and security.