Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services [Paperback]

Marco Russo (Author), Alberto Ferrari (Author), Chris Webb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2009

Design and implement fast, scalable and maintainable cubes

• A real-world guide to designing cubes with Analysis Services 2008
• Model dimensions and measure groups in BI Development Studio
• Implement security, drill-through, and MDX calculations
• Learn how to deploy, monitor, and performance-tune your cube
• Filled with best practices and useful hints and tips

In Detail

Microsoft's SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 is an OLAP server that allows users to analyze business data quickly and easily. However, designing cubes in Analysis Services can be a complex task: it's all too easy to make mistakes early on in development that lead to serious problems when the cube is in production. Learning the best practices for cube design before you start your project will help you avoid these problems and ensure that your project is a success.

This book offers practical advice on how to go about designing and building fast, scalable, and maintainable cubes that will meet your users' requirements and help make your Business Intelligence project a success.

This book gives readers insight into the best practices for designing and building Microsoft Analysis Services 2008 cubes. It also provides details about server architecture, performance tuning, security, and administration of an Analysis Services solution.

In this book, you will learn how to design and implement Analysis Services cubes. Starting from designing a data mart for Analysis Services, through the creation of dimensions and measure groups, to putting the cube into production, we'll explore the whole of the development lifecycle.

This book is an invaluable guide for anyone who is planning to use Microsoft Analysis Services 2008 in a Business Intelligence project.

What you will learn from this book?

• Build a data mart suitable for use with Analysis Services
• Create and configure an Analysis Services project in Business Intelligence Development Studio
• Use the Dimension Wizard and the Dimension Editor to build dimensions
• Create measure groups and associate them with dimensions
• Add calculations to the cube, including implementing currency conversion and a date tool dimension
• Explore the security model, including dimension security and cell security, and implement dynamic security
• Tune queries to get the best possible performance
• Automate processing and partition creation
• Monitor your cube to see who's actually using it

Approach

This is a practical tutorial for Analysis Services that shows readers how to solve problems commonly encountered while designing cubes, and explains which features of Analysis Services work well and which should be avoided. The book walks through the whole cube development lifecycle, from building dimensions, cubes and calculations to tuning and moving the cube into production.

Who this book is written for?

This book is aimed at Analysis Services developers who already have some experience but who want to go into more detail on advanced topics, and who want to learn best practices for cube design.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alberto Ferrari

Alberto Ferrari is a consultant and trainer for the BI development area with the Microsoft suite for Business Intelligence. His main interests are in the methodological approaches to BI development and he works as a trainer for software houses that need to design complex BI solutions.He co-authored the "SqlBI Methodology", which can be found on the SqlBI site.

Chris Webb

Chris Webb has been working with Microsoft Business Intelligence tools for almost ten years in a variety of roles and industries. He is an independent consultant and trainer based in the UK, specializing in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services and the MDX query language. He is the co-author of "MDX Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 and Hyperion Essbase", is a regular speaker at conferences, and blogs on BI at cwebbbi.spaces.live.com. He is a recipient of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional award for his work in the SQL Server community.

Marco Russo

Marco Russo is a consultant and trainer in software development based in Italy, focusing on development for Microsoft Windows operating systems. He's involved in several Business Intelligence projects, including those of relational and multidimensional warehouse design, with particular experience in sectors like banking and financial services, manufacturing and commercial distribution.

He previously wrote several books about .NET and recently co-authored "Introducing Microsoft LINQ" and "Programming Microsoft LINQ", both published by Microsoft Press. He also wrote "The many-to-many revolution", a mini-book about many-to-many dimension relationships in Analysis Services, and co-authored the "SQLBI Methodology" with Alberto Ferrari. Marco is a founder of SQLBI (sqlbi.com) and his blog is available at sqlblog.com/blogs/marco_russo

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (July 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847197221
• ISBN-13: 978-1847197221
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.7 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #336,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding book October 10, 2009

By Kevin S. Goff

Format:Paperback

If you work with SSAS - this is a MUST READ. Period.

I give it 5 stars - well written, strong content, and worth far more than the price.

A few comments:

- You will find viewpoints (valuable, credible viewpoints) in this book that you won't find in most SSAS books. That is part of what sets this book apart from other SSAS titles.

- On the word "expert" in the title: Expert books are not common - perhaps they should be considered a rare event. I would classify this as a very strong intermediate title. This is not a criticism in any way - a seasoned SSAS developer should read this book - but I view this more as a strong intermediate-advanced book.

- I'm an SSAS developer/instructor: people often ask me what SSAS books to buy. I instruct them to buy two...this book, and Teo Lachev's SSAS book. Sure, other SSAS books are good....but if you haven't purchased any yet and want to build a library, get this book and Teo's book. They are the Crème de la Crème.

Guys, great job, you have created a masterpiece. Well done.

Kevin S. Goff
Microsoft MVP
Business Intelligence Developer/Author/Instructor

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars From a BI Architect/Trainer March 30, 2011

By Brandon Ahmad

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

First, just to explain my position.. I've had the experience of teaching hundreds of students Microsoft official courseware on Business Intelligence. I've also served as lead BI architect during my career for a number of large companies. So, I think that I have a unique perspective on the matter.

Who this book is for:
This book is for the intermediate SSAS developer/practitioner. One should not buy/read this book without having worked with Analysis Services for at least a year and gained knowledge up to an intermediate level. There are 2 books that I would recommend that one read before tackling this one: MDX Step by Step, and SQL Server Analysis Services Step by Step.. Both of those would be requisite knowledge before really understanding this book.

Now, let's review the book:

Chapter 1 & 2: Designing the Data Warehouse for Analysis Services. This was a great little introductory chapter that took the principles of Kimball and Inmon and applied them to Analysis Services. HOWEVER, this is not even close to enough to actually know how to properly design a data warehouse. In my opinion, this was the only introductory chapter in the book -- by that, I mean a chapter that someone with one year of experience would know inside and out as the lessons are fairly common place. I almost stopped reading the book after this chapter because I thought that I had another cube 101 book.

Chapter 3: Designing More Complex Dimensions. Holy cow, this chapter BLEW MY MIND! This is the only published work that I could find anywhere that properly deals with Type 2 slowly changing dimensions and cubes. The grouping and banding section is also wonderful. The parent/child hierarchies section was somewhat controversial. Several people that I have talked to took it to mean that the authors were saying don't use parent/child hierarchies. I don't think that is what they meant. I just think that the authors meant don't use them if you don't have to do so because there are several financial and HR scenarios where Parent/child hierarchies are the only things that will work.

Chapter 4: Measure and Measure Groups
This chapter starts out slow with basic beginner knowledge about Measures and Measure Groups. But then, the authors begin to shine when they talk about how to handle different dimensionality and non-aggregatable measures. Absolutely amazing discussion that I haven't seen in any publication..

Chapter 5: dealing with Drillthrough
If any chapter should have been expanded, this should have been the one. The authors threw out some eye candy, but the subject was dealt with too briefly. I'll call this the most disappointing chapter within the book because drillthrough is so important -- more should have been said about drillthrough security, perspectives and drill-through headaches, ssrs/sharepoint headaches when passing parameters as an alternative to drill-through ect.. Any data architect knows that drillthrough can make/break a successful implementation. Furthermore, the methods of doing it past the GUI are not readily obvious. A better discussion of drillthrough can be found here:
[...]

Chapter 6: MDX Calculations
If you've got MDX down, this was a basic chapter. Breeze your way through it. The calculation dimension was very nice. It's a tactic that everyone has to learn quickly after deploying a cube.

Chapter 7: Adding Currency Conversion
A nice chapter. Fairly basic, and I wouldn't consider this advanced. I think that Scott Cameron did a better job explaining this in MDX Step by Step.

Chapter 8: Query Performance Tuning
Read this chapter and every reference that the authors provide 3 times! This was an excellent piece of work. The only thing that I would have liked to see is more time spent explaining how to use the BIDS aggregation designer because I've never really found any place that properly described the art of designing aggregations(without the wizard).

Chapter 9: Security
Very good.. somewhat high level, but the authors do a good job of explaining dynamic security.

Chapter 10: Productionization
This is good. But a far better discussion on processing can be found in Brian Knight's Problem, Design, and Solution where he deals with how to automate processing on a cube -- especially when you have multiple partitions that can be updated.

Chapter 11: Monitoring
Excellent Chapter. I have used it to make checklists when I'm on sites.

Overall, I give the book 5 stars because it is the best out there when dealing with complicated subjects. This is not sufficient to become an advanced cube administrator but it will definitely make one a strong intermediate admin. I'd recommend this plus the SSAS wiki that I referred to earlier to reach an advanced cube level.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The great 'cube' book August 20, 2009

By Phil Milner

Format:Paperback

This book is truely unique among 'cube' books in that it presents the 'heart of the matter' or essential topics that one uses in actual practice.

I really appreciate its emphasis on modeling and design of the data structures (data warehoue, dimensions, facts) because it's the complexities of designing these structures that allow you to handle the difficult 'real-world' problems. It's not all that difficult to write the 'Cube 101' book but it is very difficult to write the 'Professional Cube'. Moreover, it's done in a way that is accessible or very easy to read. In short, great ideas presented with great communication skills!

Finally, the book is relatively comphrensive in scope. It handles many difficult concepts such as Many-to-Many relationships and Data Mining dimensional relationships. It addresses most of the crucial aspects of Analysis Services cubes without going over 350 pages.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is working in the 'real world' as this book will pay for itself many times over.