Microsoft OLAP Solutions [Paperback]

Erik Thomsen (Author), George Spofford (Author), Dick Chase (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471332585 | ISBN-13: 978-0471332589 | Publication Date: August 18, 1999

"The authors merge their deep experience in OLAP to produce a roadmap to success with Microsoft SQL Server OLAP Services." -Bill Baker, Microsoft Corporation Microsoft(r) OLAP Solutions OLAP enables users to create, change, and access information from multi-dimensional data warehouses almost instantaneously. Microsoft has unleashed the power of OLAP in one of its most popular products, SQL Server 7, now distributed with its OLAP Services component. This guide to mastering Microsoft OLAP Services begins with a practical introduction to OLAP server concepts and architecture. It then progresses by logical, skill-building steps through a range of crucial topics in maintenance, database optimization, and advanced database design. The authors include in-depth case studies illustrating how to build OLAP applications, as well as instructions on how to construct working OLAP applications, including a healthcare benefits analysis application and a grocery store frequent shopper analysis application. Topics covered in detail include:
* The storage and operational architecture of Microsoft OLAP server
* Using the MDX language with Microsoft OLAP server
* Using Microsoft OLAP server to access and update data
* Specifying calculations
* Optimizing server performance
* Securing the server
On the CD-ROM you'll find:
* All the sample applications and databases described in the book
* Additional software for working with Microsoft OLAP server
Wiley Computer Publishing Timely. Practical. Reliable. Visit our Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Written for analysts who have at least some previous experience with data warehousing, Microsoft OLAP Solutions provides a working guide to analyzing legacy data with the new Microsoft online analytical processing (OLAP) Services. This book assumes you understand the fundamentals of what data warehousing is and how it works; if you do, this guide masterfully presents the strengths (and limitations) of OLAP technology.

Database (DB) analysts know that Microsoft OLAP is the proverbial new kid on the block when it comes to data warehousing. It offers good wizards and tools to simplify creation and maintenance of a data warehouse. While the authors of Microsoft OLAP Solutions dutifully explain some of the technical terminology related to OLAP (like cubes and dimensions) and design, many readers will likely seize on the chapters that examine actually using OLAP wizards and tools for building warehouses. Moreover, the reference to MDX (OLAP's data-analysis language) will be invaluable here.

This book presents some warehousing theory first, and then it focuses on specifics, including two excellent case studies (for analyzing databases for health care and a grocery store) at the end of the book. It also offers chapters on implementing changes and optimizing OLAP databases once they are up and running.

There's little doubt that with the weight of Microsoft behind it, OLAP will be a reasonable option for many corporate data warehouses. This book gives you all the information you need to apply your data warehouse knowledge to this new Microsoft platform. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Microsoft OLAP, datahouse warehousing design, dimensions and cubes, pure OLAP (MOLAP), relational OLAP (ROLAP), hybrid OLAP (HOLAP), Multidimensional Expressions (MDX), maintenance, and optimization.

From the Back Cover

"The authors merge their deep experience in OLAP to produce a roadmap to success with Microsoft SQL Server OLAP Services." -Bill Baker, Microsoft Corporation Microsoft(r) OLAP Solutions OLAP enables users to create, change, and access information from multi-dimensional data warehouses almost instantaneously. Microsoft has unleashed the power of OLAP in one of its most popular products, SQL Server 7, now distributed with its OLAP Services component. This guide to mastering Microsoft OLAP Services begins with a practical introduction to OLAP server concepts and architecture. It then progresses by logical, skill-building steps through a range of crucial topics in maintenance, database optimization, and advanced database design. The authors include in-depth case studies illustrating how to build OLAP applications, as well as instructions on how to construct working OLAP applications, including a healthcare benefits analysis application and a grocery store frequent shopper analysis application. Topics covered in detail include:
* The storage and operational architecture of Microsoft OLAP server
* Using the MDX language with Microsoft OLAP server
* Using Microsoft OLAP server to access and update data
* Specifying calculations
* Optimizing server performance
* Securing the server
On the CD-ROM you'll find:
* All the sample applications and databases described in the book
* Additional software for working with Microsoft OLAP server
Wiley Computer Publishing Timely. Practical. Reliable. Visit our Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (August 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471332585
• ISBN-13: 978-0471332589
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,258,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OLAP for the elite, November 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Microsoft OLAP Solutions (Paperback)

This book is for programmers with substantial experience with OLAP tools with syntactical development capabilities. Experienced programmers who may not have used OLAP technology but who have a good grasp of advanced technical issues related to report generation will benefit from the book too.

The book is written in a dense academic style with poor organization. (You will see this right away in their first chapter when they start discussing more esoteric design issues while giving the reader minimal context as to why they bring up these points at that time.) However, the authors know their stuff so readers experienced in the areas just described will be able to muddle through.

As a side note, this book is fascinating in a way the authors may not have intended. Microsoft, in this person's opinion, has been quite successful in selling developer technology (e.g., Visual Basic, SQL Server, Access) where a developer with a small to medium amount of knowledge of the specific technology can go pretty far without "plateauing". This book, which is subtly critical of the product, describes a product where that plateau is hit relatively quickly. It is very odd that an OLAP product, which most developers will not use every day, is designed this way. Similarly, this design rules out this tool as something for the non-IT "power user" to use for developing anything more than relatively simple applications. - Anyway, it would have been very useful if the authors would have been more overt in their criticism of the product. Yes, it might have been biting a hand that's feeding them but in the long run it would strengthen the technology.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential (and I mean Essential) reading!, February 2, 2000

By 

Martin Harwar - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft OLAP Solutions (Paperback)

Warehousing has been around for years, but many professionals will be interested in the new Microsoft OLAP cubes for ultimate performance. This book clearly and unambiguously describes what they are, how to design them and then (most importantly at this time) how to use them. For traditional data warehouse professionals, the idea of an OLAP cube may not be easy to grasp - I teach the Microsoft official courses on the subject and it never comes easy to the student. However, this book does a good job of explaining the concepts of Dimensions, Measures, Facts, Members, etc.. If, like another reviewer has said, you have to re-read the material, then I'm not surprised - this is more to do with the new concepts than with how the authors explain it. If, like another reviewer, you know what a star-schema/snowflake schema is, then you should find this book pretty straight-forward. There are some errors in the exercises, but the technical text is the best around (including anything that has come out of Microsoft!). A match for the MDX Sections cannot be found anywhere else at this point in time. I gave the book 4 out of 5 because of the errors in the examples. However, if you're really going to use OLAP Server then your own data will be much more appropriate for practising with anyway - don't let the few errors put you off. Buy it. Read it. Use it!

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Complicated and full of errors, March 26, 2000

By 

Dave (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft OLAP Solutions (Paperback)

I bought this book hoping that it would be the reference to use for Microsoft OLAP after reading the author's great book "OLAP Solutions". However, I was deeply disppointed to see that this book is no way near the previous book. The book goes into deep confusing, sometimes inaccurate discussions with little organization of the content. The book does give the impression that it was written in a hurry. The most appealing sections to me when I reviewed it at the book store (which made me buy it) were the case studies repesented in it. However, these case studies are a work of immagination because they simply don't work and are full of errors.

Another area that was disappointing to me was the MDX discussion. Again, the discussion starts with an introduction that really only serves to confuse you more. The next 2 apters go into more depth discussing functions in MDX besides other things. However, you will be better off reading the product document (although very terrible) because of the errors in the examples, and because most examples are just code snippets with no full queries.

It is also so disappointing that a Microsoft OLAP reference such as this book does not handle DTS. While the book does into deep discussions about database design and dimensional data modeling, it does not discuss how the data is transferred from the relational structures to the multidimensional structures.