Book Image

Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development

Book Image

Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development

Overview of this book

Analysis Services have been the number one OLAP engine for years. With the increased focus on business intelligence solutions, there is a shortage of professionals in this area. Start your journey into becoming a BI developer using the popular tools included in every SQL Server installation. Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development teaches you through clear step-by-step exercises to create business intelligence solutions using Analysis Services. The knowledge gained through these practical examples can immediately be applied to your real-world problems. Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development begins with an introduction to business intelligence and Analysis Services, the world's most-used cube engine. Guiding you through easy-to-understand examples to become a cube developer. Learn how to create a cube including all the advanced features such as KPIs, calculated measures, and time intelligence. Security and performance tuning will also be explored. You will learn how to perform and automate core tasks like deployment and processing. The main focus is on multidimensional cubes, but the creation of in-memory models will also be covered. You will learn everything you need to get started with cube development using SQL Server 2012.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

An introduction to data warehousing


Before actually getting started, there is an important concept that needs to be covered and that is data warehouse modeling. The data warehouse is a concept that has been around since the 1970s, it is a central database built for reporting that integrates data from disparate sources to a common location and a common schema. It also removes the direct connection between the source systems and the historical data. This means that if you change your source system, you will retain historical records and can decommission the old system.

The schema in a data warehouse in many cases is built in Third normal form (3NF) to ensure that data is only stored once to minimize the storage cost and make it easier to maintain.

Tip

For more information about 3NF, refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3NF.

This is a strategy commonly referenced as an Inmon data warehouse coming from the father of data warehousing, Bill Inmon. Also have a look at http://inmoninstitute.com/about...