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.

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Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development
Sep, 2013 | 288 pages
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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development
Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Self-service Business Intelligence, Creating Value from Data
Self-service Business Intelligence, Creating Value from Data
Identifying common user requirements for a BI system
Creating a flexible reporting solution
Getting user value through self-service reporting
Summary
2
Installing SSAS and Preparing for Cube Development
Installing SSAS and Preparing for Cube Development
Understanding the BI semantic model architecture
Choosing the deployment mode
Installing Analysis Services 2012 in multidimensional mode
Starting SQL Server Data Tools for the first time
Choosing the correct project
Navigating the project environment
Hands-on steps for configuring your cube project
Summary
3
Creating Your First Multidimensional Cube
Creating Your First Multidimensional Cube
An introduction to data warehousing
Understanding data sources
Understanding the data source view
Adding objects to the data source view
Understanding dimensions
Creating the first cube
Creating additional dimensions and adding them to the cube
Summary
4
Deploying and Processing Cubes
Deploying and Processing Cubes
Deploying objects to Analysis Services
Processing objects in Analysis Services
Partitioning cubes to speed up processing
Configuring storage modes in Analysis Services
Summary
5
Querying Your Cube
Querying Your Cube
Understanding multidimensionality
Writing MDX queries using Management Studio
Understanding the anatomy of an MDX query
Using Excel as the query tool against cubes
Connecting Excel to the FirstCube cube
Using Reporting Services together with your cube
Summary
6
Adding Functionality to Your Cube
Adding Functionality to Your Cube
Adding measures
Adding dimensions to the FirstCube project
Adding calculations to cubes
Adding perspectives to simplify cube browsing
Adding translations to support global implementations
Extending the cube with custom actions
Building budget solutions using writeback
Summary
7
Securing Your Cube Project
Securing Your Cube Project
Understanding role-based security
Securing objects in Analysis Services
Summary
8
Using Aggregations to Performance Optimize a Cube
Using Aggregations to Performance Optimize a Cube
Understanding cube aggregations
Adding aggregations to improve performance
Running the aggregation wizard
Adding aggregations manually
Using usage-based optimization to optimize the cube
Summary
9
In-memory, the Future
In-memory, the Future
Understanding tabular models
Installing a tabular mode instance
Creating a tabular mode project
Defining the workspace server
Connecting to the data source
Adding tables to the data model
Adding data from other data sources
Working with partitions in tabular models
Creating calculations
Specifying other types of tables and columns
KPIs
Adding hierarchies
Sorting data based on other columns
Hiding columns and tables from the end users
Creating perspectives
Adding security to your in-memory model
Optimizing the tabular model for performance
Querying tabular models
Summary
10
Cubes in the Larger Context
Cubes in the Larger Context
Using Microsoft frontend tools to query Analysis Services
Third-party tools
Summary
Index
Index

Understanding tabular models

This first release of the in-memory model was targeted for business users who wanted to create their own models mashing up data from different sources in an easy-to-use tool. Microsoft wanted to create the ultimate business analytics tool for the Excel user, and they added the PowerPivot add-in to Excel 2010. Microsoft also added a server model of PowerPivot that is installed together with their collaboration platform called SharePoint . The goal of PowerPivot for SharePoint was to enable users to share the models between them and with other users. Because the size of the model can be quite big, it is not practical to do so through other means such as e-mail or file shares. At the same time, PowerPivot for SharePoint allows IT professionals to monitor the models that business users create.

Both PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint use the same in-memory technology developed by the Analysis Services team called xVelocity in-memory analytical engine...

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