Customer Reviews

Microsoft OLAP Solutions

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

I attended the Microsoft Official Curriculum for DW using SQL 7 and this book provides much more information about creating and using Datawarehouses. The book provides ample coverage of MDX, something the OLAP docs and the class were lacking in. It also provides good coverage for creating external functions and provides informative information about the different storage and design mechanism for DWs. Just took the DW beta exam and this book did a decent job of preparing me for the exam. Still need real world experience creating DW though.

OLAP is a very large topic by itself. No single book can adequately cover everything that everyone wants. The authors did an extremely good job of covering the topic while adding enough detail so that both novices and advanced users will find it extremely useful. The beginner may need to read it several times to grasp the concepts, but it is definitely worth the time and money. I haven't found anything even close that covers MS OLAP Services. If you are using OLAP Services or plan to, you need this book.

This book is for the intermediate OLAP developer/DBA who wishes to know how to do more with OLAP and delve into it's capabilities in more detail. In relation to other books I've seen, this book goes into more detail on calculated members; the internal structure of OLAP; and has a great MDX reference with diagrams of function behaviors. I bought it to help me deal with my application solution and it is very useful since it has many examples and real-world descriptions. It also has 2 case studies that come in handy to the beginner and intermediate OLAP devotee. If you are looking for enhancing your OLAP analysis capabilites, this book is for you.

I found this book full of valuable info. The author is clearly knowledgeable and clever. I liked expecially the chapters on the business case. I do not grant the fifth star because the writing is sometime obscure (at least for a non-native-english-speaker). I also spotted some errata.

I bought this book with the intent to use it as a reference tool to understand Microsoft OLAP toolkit. This book does extend and add to the available documentation that comes with the product. I found the content extremely hard to follow for a layman in the OLAP environment. I have had a number of years experience building star schema data warehouses but still had a hard time grasping the CUBE concept without reading a number of times.

I also was hoping for some more information about building client applications to access the cubes. Expecially how to use Excell or other OLAP tools to process cube data via the Internet.

In trying to follow the tutorials I was amazed at the number of errors. This made it extremely difficult to follow. I only bought this book because it was the only one available at the time, possibly rushing it to the printer was not a good thing.

This book is what you really want if you are serious about developing using Microsoft Analysis Services. Today with Microsoft Analysis Services ranking as the most widely implemented OLAP/analysis solution this is the best source to get started on Microsoft OLAP services from none other than Erik Thomsen the OLAP guru and George Spofford. The authors were kind enough to answer readers queries by email that makes a big difference to somebody getting into a new technology. The book points the strengths and limitations thereby preparing you to have workarounds for the limitations. I rate 5 stars for the completeness, presentation, honesty and responsiveness of the authors. They do not try to sell a product to you but provide the technology - a very small breed you find these days you will bang your head for days with a product for a limitation that was not known and later learn to live with it but here you know upfront what they are and how to avoid them through proper design and implementation. My only request to the authors when Microsoft SQL Server - Yukon the next major release of SQL Server which will be available in 3 months time will redefine and make SQL Server more stronger in database, OLAP, ETL & data mining segments I would appreciate if the authors post a electronic appendixes to the book to explain the new features in Analysis services and MDX in the new release of SQL Server.

Don't buy this book. Please, read the first chapter and then figure out why it would be a waste of time and money to invest in this book. The tool is great; just don't follow this book. I say read the documentation that comes with the tool. If you really want to learn OLAP, get the OLAP solutions book by Mr. Eric. GREAT BOOK! Save yourself time; money is secondary.