Book Image

Hands-On SQL Server 2019 Analysis Services

By : Steve Hughes
Book Image

Hands-On SQL Server 2019 Analysis Services

By: Steve Hughes

Overview of this book

SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) continues to be a leading enterprise-scale toolset, enabling customers to deliver data and analytics across large datasets with great performance. This book will help you understand MS SQL Server 2019’s new features and improvements, especially when it comes to SSAS. First, you’ll cover a quick overview of SQL Server 2019, learn how to choose the right analytical model to use, and understand their key differences. You’ll then explore how to create a multi-dimensional model with SSAS and expand on that model with MDX. Next, you’ll create and deploy a tabular model using Microsoft Visual Studio and Management Studio. You'll learn when and how to use both tabular and multi-dimensional model types, how to deploy and configure your servers to support them, and design principles that are relevant to each model. The book comes packed with tips and tricks to build measures, optimize your design, and interact with models using Excel and Power BI. All this will help you visualize data to gain useful insights and make better decisions. Finally, you’ll discover practices and tools for securing and maintaining your models once they are deployed. By the end of this MS SQL Server book, you’ll be able to choose the right model and build and deploy it to support the analytical needs of your business.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Choosing Your Model
4
Section 2: Building and Deploying a Multidimensional Model
8
Section 3: Building and Deploying Tabular Models
12
Section 4: Exposing Insights while Visualizing Data from Your Models
15
Section 5: Security, Administration, and Managing Your Models

Summary

At this point, we are ready to start working with Analysis Services in SQL Server 2019. You have successfully installed the tools we will be using and uploaded the sample data. Along the way, you were able to learn some of Analysis Services' history and how the introduction of Tabular Mode and the VertiPaq engine disrupted the multidimensional database world.

In the next chapter, we will evaluate the right times to choose one mode over the other. As you noticed during the installation, they are not the same product and they come with their own strengths and weaknesses. Once we look at the reasons to choose one option over the other, we will begin the process of creating models in both, starting with multidimensional and moving to tabular. We will look at some common reporting tools to interact with these models and wrap up with some advanced techniques. Remember, if you follow the exercises in the book, you will create models in both modes in Analysis Services and understand which fits your business needs better.