Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Bible

1195

CHAPTER

53

Building Multidimensional Cubes

in Analysis Services with MDX

IN THIS CHAPTER

Discovering Concepts and Terminology of Analysis Services

Building Up the Components of a Multidimensional Database

Exploring the Details of Dimensions and Cubes

Confi guring Database Storage and Partitions

Designing Aggregations to Increase Query Speed

Understanding Cube Processing and Data Integrity

A

nalysis Services is a tool for centralizing logic, relating disparate systems, and serving up

answers fast. It summarizes billions of rows in a second — a task that would take relational

queries several minutes or longer. And unlike summary tables in a relational database, you

don’t need to create a different data structure for each type of summary.

Analysis Services is all about simple access to clean, consistent data. You can easily construct com-

plex calculations, even those involving period-over-period comparisons. It is the perfect tool to cre-

ate a single version of the truth.

Analysis Services Quick Start

One quick way to start with both data warehousing and Analysis Services is to let the Business

Intelligence Development Studio build the Analysis Services database and associated warehouse

tables for you. Begin by identifying or creating a SQL Server warehouse (relational) database. Then

open Business Intelligence Development Studio, and create a new Analysis Services project.

Right-click the Cubes node in the Solution Explorer, and choose New Cube to begin the Cube Wizard. On

the Select Creation Method page of the wizard, choose Generate Tables in the Data Source, and choose

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