Wrox professional SQL server analysis services 2005 with MDX may 2006 ISBN 0764579185

Next Page Professional SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 with MDX bySivakumar HarinathandStephen R Quinn Wrox Press 2006 (856 pages) ISBN:0764579185 W ritten by m em bers of the Analysis Services product team at Microsoft, this tim ely, authoritative book shows you how to use Analysis Services with SQ L Server com ponents to provide com prehensive, end-to-end solutions Table of Contents Professional SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 with MDX Introduction Section I - Introduction C hapter - Introduction to Data Warehousing and Analysis Services 2005 C hapter - First Look at Analysis Services 2005 C hapter - Introduction to MDX C hapter - Working with Data Sources and Data Source Views C hapter - Dimension Design C hapter - C ube Design Section II - Advanced Topics C hapter - Advanced Topics in MDX C hapter - Advanced Dimension Design C hapter - Advanced C ube Design C hapter 10 - Extending MDX using External Functions Section III - Administration, Performance Tuning Integration C hapter 11 - Updating Your UDM Data C hapter 12 - Administering Analysis Services C hapter 13 - Performance Optimization C hapter 14 - Data Mining C hapter 15 - Analyzing C ubes using Office C lient C omponents C hapter 16 - Integration Services Section IV - Scenarios C hapter 17 - Reporting Services C hapter 18 - Designing Real-Time C ubes C hapter 19 - Securing Your Data in Analysis Services Appendix A - MDX Function and Operator Reference Index List of Figures List of Tables List of C ode Examples Next Page Next Page Back Cover SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 provides you with the business intelligence platform needed to build full-scale, multidimensional databases MDX is the query language used to extract information from those multidimensional databases Analysis Services 2005 supports core business functions such as market analysis, budgeting and forecasting Written by members of the Analysis Services product team at Microsoft, this timely and authoritative book shows you how to use Analysis Services along with SQL Server components like Integration Services, Data Mining, and Reporting Services to provide comprehensive, end-to-end solutions Ultimately you'll learn to solve business problems by leveraging all the tools that SQL Server 2005 has to offer What you will learn from this book The development process for designing Unified Dimensional Models (UDM) Using MDX to query databases and for sophisticated business analysis How to harness features such as multiple measure groups, BI wizards, Key performance indicators, and Actions How to integrate Analysis Services with other SQL Server 2005 components in order to provide the best possible end-to-end solutions How to manage and secure Analysis Services efficiently in support of your BI users How to optimize your design and/or scale Analysis Services to extract the best performance Who this book is for This book is for database and data warehouse developers and administrators interested in exploiting the power of BI and leveraging the SQL Server 2005 tool set About the Authors Sivakumar Harinath was born in C hennai, India Siva has a Ph.D in C omputer Science from the University of Illinois at C hicago His thesis title was: "Data Management Support for Distributed Data Mining of Large Datasets over High Speed Wide Area Networks." Siva has worked for Newgen Software Technologies (P) Ltd., IBM Toronto Labs, C anada, and has been at Microsoft since February of 2002 Siva started as a Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) in the Analysis Services Performance Team and is currently an SDET Lead for Analysis Services 2005 Siva's other interests include high performance computing, distributed systems and high speed networking Stephen Quinn was born in San Luis Obispo, C alifornia Stephen has a Masters degree (1988) in C ognitive Psychology from C alifornia State University, C hico and is scheduled to receive his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Washington, Seattle, in June 2006 He has been in most roles common to the R&D environment i.e., software developer, technical writer, technical support specialist and several quality assurance roles Stephen has published some 20 articles in the magazines Byte, InfoWorld and Datamation With 15+ years of software experience; Stephen has worked the last years at Microsoft; most recently as a Technical Writer in SQL User Education and before that, for several years as Test Manager in the SQL Business Intelligence Unit Next Page Next Page Professional SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 with MDX Sivakumar Harinath Stephen R Quinn Wiley Publishing, Inc Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256 http://www.wiley.com 2006 Wiley Publishing, Inc Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada 0-7645-7918-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-7645-7918-9 ISBN-10: 0-7645-7918-5 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 1MA/RW/QV/QW/IN Library of Congress control number: 2005032272 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600 Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HERE-FROM THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 5723993 or fax (317) 572-4002 Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Programmer to Programmer, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission SQL Server is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books About the Authors Sivakumar Harinath Sivakumar Harinath was born in Chennai, India Siva has a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago His thesis title was: "Data Management Support for Distributed Data Mining of Large Datasets over High Speed Wide Area Networks." Siva has worked for Newgen Software Technologies (P) Ltd., IBM Toronto Labs, Canada, and has been at Microsoft since February of 2002 Siva started as a Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) in the Analysis Services Performance Team and is currently an SDET Lead for Analysis Services 2005 Siva's other interests include high performance computing, distributed systems and high speed networking Siva is married to Shreepriya and had twins Praveen and Divya during the course of writing this book His personal interests include travel, games/sports (in particular, Chess, Carrom, Racquet Ball, Board games) and Cooking You can reach Siva at sivakumar.harinath@microsoft.com Stephen Quinn Stephen Quinn was born in San Luis Obispo, California Stephen has a Masters degree (1988) in Cognitive Psychology from California State University, Chico and is scheduled to receive his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Washington, Seattle, in June 2006 Stephen is married to Katherine and is raising his daughter, Anastasia He has been in most roles common to the R&D environment i.e., software developer, technical writer, technical support specialist and several quality assurance roles Stephen has published some 20 articles in the magazines Byte, InfoWorld and Datamation With 15+ years of software experience; Stephen has worked the last years at Microsoft; most recently as a Technical Writer in SQL User Education and before that, for several years as Test Manager in the SQL Business Intelligence Unit You can reach Stephen at srq@portfolioeffect.com Credits Executive Editor Robert Elliot Development Editor Adaobi Obi Tulton Technical Editor Leah Etienne Dylan Huang Tom Mathews Production Editor Pamela Hanley Copy Editor Kim Coffer Editorial Manager Mary Beth Wakefield Production Manager Tim Tate Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Richard Swadley Vice President and Executive Publisher Joseph B Wikert Project Coordinator Michael Kruzil Graphics and Production Specialists Beth Brooks Andrea Dahl Lauren Goddard Denny Hager Stephanie D Jumper Lysney Osborn Jill Proll Alicia B South Amanda Spagnuolo Quality Control Technician John Greenough Media Development Project Supervisor Laura Atkinson Proofreading Shannon Ramsey Indexing Techbooks I dedicate this book in the grandest possible manner to my dear wife Shreepriya who has been fully supportive and put up with me disappearing from home and the late nights when I worked on this book It is also dedicated to my two month old twins Praveen and Divya who not know what a book is yet I wish their cute photographs could be on the cover page I dedicate this book in memory of my father Harinath Govindarajalu who passed away in 1999 who I am sure would have been proud of this great achievement and to my mother Sundara Bai Finally, dedicate the book to my inlaws Sundaravathanem Sanjeevi and Geethalakshmi Sanjeevi who have been very supportive and helping during the last six months Sivakumar Harinath I dedicate my contribution to this book to the woman who was most supportive and encouraging about the project That would be my wife, Kyung Eun (Katherine) Quinn Also, I would like to dedicate this to my kid, Anastasia who would have preferred I spent much of that writing time with her To my mother, Roselma Quinn who tolerated incessant last minute changes of plan due to book-related work And my father, Stephen Thomas Quinn, who tolerated my whining about how much work this book was to produce Finally, to my MBA study team, thanks to everyone on the team; Jim Braun, Liz Younger, Michael Styles, Kevin Heath, Eduardo Alvarez-Godinez, and Dave Lovely for being understanding about what I was going through Stephen R Quinn In memory of all those who have been devastated due to the natural calamities in the last two years such as the South Asian Tsunami, Storms Katrina and Rita in the United States and earthquakes in India and Pakistan Acknowledgments Wow!!! It has been an amazing two-year journey, almost to the day, from when we decided to partner in writing this book It all started when Siva jokingly mentioned to his wife the idea of writing a book on SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 She took it seriously and motivated him to start working on the idea in October of 2003 As always, there are so many people who deserve mentioning that we're afraid we'll miss someone If you are among those missed, please accept our humblest apologies We first need to thank Amir Netz, our then Product Unit Manager, who not only granted us the permission to moonlight while working at Microsoft, but also provided constant encouragement and support It is apropos that it is called moonlighting because we saw a lot of moonlight while working on this book - multiple all nighters took place We thank Zhaohui Tang, who helped us get in touch with the right publishing people Our sincerest thanks go to Wiley Publishing for giving us this opportunity and placing their trust in first-time authors like us They provided immense help, constant feedback, and expert support We would especially like to thank our editors, Bob Elliot and Adaobi Obi Tulton, who didn't so much as support us as prod us along — which is exactly what we needed at the time We would like to thank our technical reviewers, Leah Etienne and Dylan Huang, who graciously offered us their assistance Dylan also contributed to the technical content in chapters 9, 11 and 13 We thank all our colleagues in the Analysis Services product team (including Developers, Program Managers, and Testers) who helped us in accomplishing the immense feat of writing a book on a developing product From the Analysis Services team, special thanks go to Akshai Mirchandani, Richard Tkachuk, Mosha Pasumansky, Marius Dumitru, T.K Anand, Sasha Berger, Paul Sanders, Thierry D'Hers, Matt Carroll, Andrew Garbuzov, Zhaohui Tang, Artur Pop, and Rob Zare for patiently answering our questions We also thank our Analysis Services documentation colleagues Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mathews for their helpful input Most importantly, we owe our deepest thanks to our wonderful families Without their support and sacrifice, this book would have become one of those many projects that one begins and never finishes Our families were the ones who truly took the brunt of it and sacrificed shared leisure time, all in support of our literary pursuit We especially want to thank them for their patience with us, and the grace it took not killing us during some of the longer work binges During this long journey life did not stand still: Siva's wife gave birth to twins, Praveen and Divya, and Stephen finished the first year (plus part of the second) of MBA studies at the University of Washington, Seattle Finally to Siva's wife, Shreepriya, and to Stephen's wife, Katherine, none of this would have been possible without your support Next Page Next Page Introduction We decided to write this book because we sensed the power and excitement associated with Analysis Services 2005 early on in its development, especially in relation to improvements over Analysis Services 2000 We also sensed that with minimal effort you could probably re-configure the user interface elements to pilot a nuclear submarine Our recommendation, however, is to use Analysis Services 2005 to build, process, and deploy top of the line business intelligence applications Ok, so we are not shy about admitting to the apparent complexity of the product when faced with the user interface, which happens to be embedded in the Microsoft Visual Studio shell This is great for you, especially if you are already familiar with the Visual Studio development environment With this book, we want to show that not only will you overcome any possible initial shock regarding the user interface, you will come to see it as your friend It turns out there are many wizards to accomplish common tasks, or you can design the analytic infrastructure from the ground up, it is up to you This formidable, yet friendly user interface will empower you to implement business analytics of a caliber formerly reserved for academicians writing up government grant proposals or Ph.D dissertations More importantly, this power to turn data into information, and we mean, real usable business-related decision making information, can impact the bottom line of your company in terms of dollars earned and dollars saved And that is what data warehousing, ultimately, is all about Put another way, the purpose of all this data warehousing is simple; it is about generating actionable information from the data stores created by a company's sales, inventory, and other data sources In sum, it is all about decision support Who This Book Is For What was the impetus for you to pick up this book? Perhaps you are passionate about extracting information from reams of raw data; or perhaps you have some very specific challenges on the job right now that you think might be amenable to a business analysis based solution Then, there is always the lure of fame and fortune Please be aware that attaining expert status in data warehousing can lead to lucrative consulting and salaried opportunities However, it won't likely make you as rich as becoming a purveyor of nothing-down real estate courses If your desire is to leave the infomercial career path to others and get really serious about data warehousing in general and business intelligence in particular, you have just the book in your hands to start or continue on your path to subject mastery The obvious question now is what are the pre-requisites for reading and understanding the content of this book? You certainly not have to already know the intricacies of data warehousing, you will learn that here as you go If you have only the foggiest notion of what a relational database is; well, this book is going to challenge you at best and bury you at worst If you are not intimidated by what you just read, this book is for you If you have worked on data warehouses using non-Microsoft products and want to learn how Microsoft can it better, this book is for you If you are a database administrator, MIS Professional or application developer interested in exploiting the power of business intelligence then this book is definitely for you! Next Page Next Page What This Book Covers Analysis Services 2005 is the premier multi-dimensional database from Microsoft This is the most recent of three releases from Microsoft to date In this release, the tools and server provided have been designed for use as an enterprise-class Business Intelligence Server and we think Microsoft has been successful Analysis Services 2005 provides you with powerful tools to design, build, test and deploy your multi-dimensional databases By integrating the tools within Visual Studio you really get the feel of building a BI project Similar to any application you build within VS; you build your BI projects and deploy them to Analysis Services instance Due to the new product design and enhanced features you definitely have to know how to create cubes, dimensions and many other objects, maintain them, and support your BI users Similar to its well-liked predecessors, Analysis Services 2005 supports the MDX language by which you can query data MDX is for querying multi-dimensional databases much like SQL is for query of relational databases The MDX language is a component of the OLE DB for OLAP specification and is supported by other BI vendors Microsoft's Analysis Services 2005 provides certain extensions that help you to achieve more from your multi-dimensional databases This book walks you through the entire product and the important features of the product with the help of step by step instructions on building multi-dimensional databases Within each chapter you will not only learn how to use the features but also learn more about the features at a user level and what happens behind the scenes to make things work We believe this will provide you additional insight into how features really work and hence provide insight into how they are best exploited It will also enhance your ability to debug problems which you might not have been able to otherwise This behind the scenes view is often surfaced through exposure of the XML for Analysis XML/A created by the product based on user interface settings It works like this; Analysis Services 2005 uses the XML/A specification to communicate between client and server — The Analysis Services 2005 tools communicate to the server using XML/A Once you have designed your multi-dimensional database using the tools you need to send the definition to the server At that time the tools use XML/A to send the definitions You will learn these definitions so that you have the ability to design a custom application which interacts with an Analysis Services instance MDX is the language used for data retrieval from Analysis Services You will get an introduction to the MDX language with basic concepts and the various MDX functions in this book When you are browsing data using Analysis Services tools; those tools send appropriate MDX to the instance of Analysis Services which contains the target data By learning the MDX sent to the server for the various desired operations you will begin to understand the intricacies of MDX and thereby improve your own MDX coding skills by extension One of the key value-adds found in this book, which we think is worth the price of admission by itself, is that through the chapters you will begin to understand what design trade offs are involved in BI application development Further, the book will help you in better BI design for your company in the face of those trade off decisions– especially with the help of a few scenarios And there are many scenarios discussed in this book The scenarios are geared towards some of the common business problems that are currently faced by existing Analysis Services customers While there is no pretension that this book will teach you business per se, it is a book on BI and we did take the liberty of explaining certain business concepts which you are sure to run into eventually For example, the often misunderstood concept of depreciation is explained in some detail Again, this aspect of the book is shallow, but we hope what pure business concepts are covered will provide you a more informed basis from which to work If you know the concepts already, well, why not read about the ideas again? There might be some new information in there for you Finally, this book covers integration of Analysis Services with other SQL Server 2005 components – Data Mining, Integrations Services and Reporting Services These chapters will help you go beyond just a passing level of understanding of Analysis Services 2005; it is really integration of these disparate components which ship in the box with SQL Server which allow you to build start to finish BI solutions which are scalable, maintainable, have good performance characteristics, and highlight the right information Do not skip the chapters which not at first seem crucial to understanding Analysis Services 2005 itself; it is the whole picture that brings the real value Get that whole picture for stellar success and return on your investment of time, and energy Next Page Next Page How This Book Is Structured The authors of books in the Wrox Professional series attempt to make each chapter as stand alone as possible This book is no exception However, owing to the sophistication of the subject matter and the manner in which certain concepts are necessarily tied to others has somewhat undermined this most noble intention In fact, unless you are a seasoned data warehousing professional; or otherwise have experience with earlier versions of Analysis Services, it is advised you take a serial approach to reading chapters Work through the first three chapters in order as they will collectively provide you some architectural context, a good first look at the product and an introduction to MDX Just to remind you, in the simplest terms, MDX is to Analysis Services what SQL is to SQL Server Ok, that was just too simple an analogy; but let's not get ahead of ourselves! As for the actual layout of the book, we have divided the book into roughly four major sections In Part we introduce the basic concepts and then get you kick started using Analysis Services with most of the common operations that you need to design your databases You will become familiarized with the product if you aren't already and hopefully it will provide you some sense of achievement which will certainly help motivate you to go beyond the simple stuff and move to the advanced Part contains chapters that prepare you for the more advanced topics concerning the creation of multidimensional databases You will learn about the calculation model in Analysis Services 2005 and enhance your dimensions and cube designs using Business Intelligence Development Studio Further you will learn more about the new features in the product such as multiple measure groups, business intelligence wizards, key performance indicators, and actions In Part of the book, we include some of the common scenarios used in BI spread across four chapters (all with specific learning agendas of their own) The idea here is for you to get comfortable solving business problems and start you on your way to thinking about how to build larger scale BI databases We also, we focus on real world business aspects of product usage Like budgeting and forecasting and to be particularly real world, we have a whole chapter on the use of Office analysis components Finally, in Part 4, we cover the integration of Analysis Services with other SQL Server 2005 components that help you build solutions and provide the best support possible to your administrators and BI users Both Integration and Administration along with Performance are absolutely key to get the maximum out of the system after initial design This is also the section where you will find Data Mining Together, these four sections, that is to say, this book, will provide you a full blown BI learning experience Since BI and BI applications constitute such an incredibly complex and massive field of endeavor, no one book can possibly cover it all In terms of BI though the eyes of SQL Server Analysis Services 2005, we hope this book has got it covered! We also encourage you to take a look at Appendix A; it is the complete MDX Reference as obtained from the Wiley Publishing book, MDX Solutions, 2nd Edition The authors would like to thank George Spofford and Wiley Publishing for allowing use of that reference; it should come in handy for you Next Page Next Page What You Need to Use This Book You need a computer running some version of the Windows operating system, like Windows XP Professional for example, and a copy of SQL Server 2005 installed on that system Please see the appropriate documentation from Microsoft for the hardware requirements needed to support the particular version of Windows you own Next Page Next Page Conventions To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what's happening, we've used a number of conventions throughout the book Important Boxes like this one hold important, not-to-be forgotten information that is directly relevant to the surrounding text NoteTips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current discussion are offset and placed in italics like this As for styles in the text: We highlight new terms and important words when we introduce them We show keyboard strokes like this: Ctrl+A We show file names, URLs, and code within the text like so: persistence.properties We present code in two different ways: In code examples we highlight new and important code with a gray background The gray highlighting is not used for code that's less important in the present context, or has been shown before Next Page Next Page Source Code As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manually or to use the source code files that accompany the book All of the source code used in this book is available for download at http://www.wrox.com Once at the site, simply locate the book's title (either by using the Search box or by using one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book's detail page to obtain all the source code for the book NoteBecause many books have similar titles, you may find it easiest to search by ISBN; for this book the ISBN is 0-764-579185 Once you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool Alternately, you can go to the main Wrox code download page at http://www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download.aspx to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books Next Page Next Page Index R Rabeler, Carl (Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Operations Guide ), 439 ragged hierarchies, Rank function (MDX), 76, 771-772 ranking Adventure Works examples, 203-205 Rank function for, 76, 771-772 RDL (Report Definition Language), 596, 603 read DB commit lock, performance and, 438-439 Real Time OLAP connection string property, 657 real-time cubes average latency scenario, 651-655 defined, 637 long latency scenario, 647-650 multi-national companies and, 637-638 no latency scenario, 655-657 proactive caching overview, 638-642 proactive caching setup, 642-647 uses for, 637-638 recursive calculations, 196 RECURSIVE flag (MDX), 539 Reeves, Laura (The Data Warehouse Lifecycle ), 13 reference dimensions browsing, 162-163 optimizing, 431 reference relationships browsing reference dimensions, 162-163 defined, 158 establishing, 158-161 referential integrity, 6, 227-228 refreshing data, partitions and, 432 Register Database Assembly dialog for COM UDFs, 325 debug options, 332 impersonation mode options, 333-334, 387-388 permission set options, 333, 386 for stored procedures, 332-334, 386-388 Registered Servers in SSMS window, 54-55 regression data mining algorithms, 488, 490 relational databases See also databases creating a report model from, 629 creating reports on, 597-604 multi-dimensional databases versus, 4, 11 optimizing data sources, 441 relational mining model analyzing the accuracy of, 500-504 clustering model, 507-512 creating, 491-500 Data Mining Wizard for, 492-496 Discretized content in, 498 DMX queries with, 506-507 multiple models in same structure, 507, 512 predicting values using, 504-507 for targeted mailing type problem, 491-500 Relational OLAP storage mode See ROLAP storage mode relationships aggregation design and, 465-466 between cube dimensions and measure groups, 156-158 data mining, 262-263 between dimensions and measure groups, 259-263 between fact and dimension members, 158 fact relationships, 259-260 between fact tables and measure groups, 164 hierarchy, defining between attributes, 427-430 many-to-many dimensions, 260-262 many-to-one relationships between attributes, 427 names, 105 one-to-many relationships between attributes, 121, 122, 427 outward-facing, 116 reference relationships, 158-161 specifying in the DSV, 97, 98 remote partition See also partitions aggregations for, 314-316 building, 310-312 deleting an existing partition, 309-310 Master computer configuration, 306-307 overview, 306 security, 310-311 subordinate computer configuration, 307-309 two computers best for implementing, 306 removing See deleting or removing Report actions properties, 287 reviewing, 288-289 target types, 282 URL string generated by, 288 Report Builder ad-hoc reports using, 632-635 overview, 629 report model for, 629-632 Report Definition Language (RDL), 596, 603 Report Designer creating a report on a relational database, 597-604 designing reports based on a UDM, 605-610 overview, 596 RDL created in, 596 Report Wizard, 597 report model creating from databases, 629 creating from UDM, 630-632 defined, 629 project for, 629 Report Server credentials for, 625, 626, 627 deploying reports, 623-624 overview, 597 report execution settings, 625-626 report model for, 629-632 web interface to, 623 Report Wizard for Analysis Services Report, 605-610 for relational database report, 598-603 Reporting Services See also Analysis Services Report ad-hoc reports using Report Builder, 629-635 automating report delivery, 628-629 creating a report on a relational database, 597-604 creating reports based on a UDM, 604-624 custom aggregates for reports, 620-623 deploying reports, 623-624 email delivery of reports, 629 extended properties, 619-620 formatting reports, 617-619 integration with Analysis Services 2005, 605 managing reports, 625-629 MDX query builder, 607-608 new features and extended capabilities, 604-605 previewing reports, 603-604, 617, 622-623 Report Definition Language (RDL), 596, 603 Report Designer, 596-597 report execution settings, 625-626 report projects, 597 Report Server, 597 Report Wizard, 597 security settings, 625-628 subscriptions for reports, 629 reports (Excel) creating Pivot chart reports, 544-546 formatting Pivot table reports, 542-544 Reports folder, 598 RequireClientAuthentication feature, 398 resource bottlenecks, identifying, 446-447 restarting Analysis Services, 368 Restore Database dialog, 390-391, 663-664 restoring databases See also backup AMO for, 410-411 SSMS for, 390-391 restricting the cube space CREATE SUBCUBE statement for, 197-198 EXISTING keyword for, 199-200 EXISTS function for, 198-199 SCOPE statement for, 190-191, 197 SUB-SELECT clause for, 200-201 retail profits, increasing using data mining, 487 rigid aggregations, 466 ROLAP (Relational OLAP) storage mode Analysis Services support for, 438 cell writeback and, 358, 360 dimension data retrieval and, 228 optimizing partitions, 435-437 overview, 15 partitions and, 312-313, 431 performance and, 438, 447, 638 proactive caching and, 638, 639-641, 655-656 role-playing dimensions, 264 roles See also access permissions; dimension security creating with role designer, 667-670 defined, 34 objects, 57 overview, 663 for report users, 627 server and database, 397-398 Visual Totals and, 672 Roles designer for access permissions for cubes and dimensions, 316-319 Cubes tab, 318, 668 Data Sources tab, 317 Dimension Data tab, Advanced, 669-670 Dimension Data tab, Basic, 669, 670 Dimensions tab, 318-319, 668-669 General tab, 316-317, 667 Membership tab, 317, 667-668 opening, 316 Roles dialog, 397-398 Roles folder, 34 RollupChildren function (MDX), 772-773 Root function (MDX), 208, 773-774 Ross, Margy (The Data Warehouse Lifecycle ), 13 Rowset actions, 281 running See starting Next Page Next Page Index S Safe permission set, 333, 386 Save As dialog (Excel), 550, 551 scalability average query response under load, 422-423 handling large dimensions, 475 optimizing, 473-475 queues and, 421-422 scale out solution, 475 scale up solution, 475 server configuration properties and, 473-475 typical graph for server, 421-422 schemas BIDS Discover requests for information, 126 snowflake, 12, 116 star, 11, 116 scope See also SCOPE statements (MDX) of COM UDFs, 324 of named sets, 187 SCOPE statements (MDX) cell calculations using, 193-195 cube space restricted by, 190-191, 197 nested, 190 overview, 774 recursive calculations and, 196 syntax, 190 Script task (Integration Services), 579 security See also access permissions; dimension security cell security scenario, 684-691 for cube data, 683-691 defined, 659 enabling and disabling features, 398-399 importance of, 659 managing, 397-399 overview, 316, 659 for remote partition, 310-311 for reports, 625-628 roles, 397-398 server and database roles, 397-398 for source data, 660-662 stored procedures (assemblies) and, 321-322, 386 Surface Area Configuration utility for, 398-399 Security Settings dialog (Internet Explorer), 551-552 segmentation data mining algorithms, 488, 489 SELECT statement (DMX), 506-507 SELECT statement (MDX) See also specific clauses for Analysis Services Report, 607-608 AUTO EXISTS behavior and, 190 axis specification, 71 Excel generation of, 529-530, 532-533, 535-536, 538-539 generated by the OWC, 154-156, 162-163 for incremental processing query after polling, 648 named sets in, 187 querying calculated measures, 173 querying stored procedures, 334-335 in SUB-SELECT clause, 200 syntax, 58, 70-71 verifying results of cell calculations, 192 SELECT statement (SQL), 599-601 Semantic Model Description Language (SMDL), 629 semi-additive measures, 294-296, 620, 621 semicolon (;) separating statements in MDX scripts, 182 Send Mail task (Integration Services), 566, 572-574 sequence analysis data mining algorithms, 488 Sequence Clustering algorithm, 489 Server Assemblies objects, 58 server configuration properties, 473-475 server role, 302-303 Server Time dimension browsing hierarchies, 244-246 creating, 241-244, 245 uses for, 116 servers See also specific kinds average query response under load, 422-423 connection for AMO application, 407 disconnecting after AMO application, 409 managing, 368-370 Production Servers versus Test Servers, 368 registering with SSMS, 54-55 roles, 397-398 typical scalability graph, 421-422 set functions (MDX), 83-85 See also specific functions set operators (MDX), 79-80 SET statement (MDX), 154-156, 162 SetDefaultMember dialog, 222 sets constructing explicitly, 702-703 defined, 69, 74 duplicate tuples in, 70 empty, 69 functions returning, 698-699 generated by the OWC, 154-156, 162, 163 named, 74-75, 186-187 overview, 69-70 SetToArray function (MDX), 774 SetToStr function (MDX), 774-775 Shared Data Sources folder, 598 Siblings function (MDX), 776 SilenceInterval property, 651-654 SilenceOverrideInterval property, 651-654 slash (/) as arithmetic operator, 79 for MDX comments, 79 as unary operator, 218 Slice property, 435-437 slicer dimensions, 72-74 slicing cubes, defined, 521 SMDL (Semantic Model Description Language), 629 snowflake dimensions, 135-136, 342 snowflake schema, 12, 116 SOAP Envelope tags for XML/A, 373 sorting Adventure Works examples, 203-205 dimension members, 225 improving performance with NonEmpty function, 471-472 members of a level, 130-132 Order function for, 761-765 preserving hierarchy, set containing multiple dimensions, 764-765 preserving hierarchy, set containing one dimension, 763-764 Sousa, Ryan (Corporate Information Factory ), 13 speed See performance; performance optimization Spofford, George (MDX Solutions ), 208, 473 SQL injection, 205, 350 SQL Profiler administrator privileges needed for tracing events, 476 analyzing performance using, 476-480 checking aggregation utilization, 479-480 described, 14 SQL Server 2005 release and, 22 SQL Server 2005 See also SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) Analysis Services installation and, 440-441 data sources supported from, 91 services included in, 14 square brackets ([]) in MDX syntax, 70 in member names, 65 SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) See Integration Services SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) See also administering Analysis Services cell writeback and, 365 command for merging partitions, 385-386 connecting to services, 54-55 described, 14, 22, 54, 368 Object Explorer pane, 54, 55-58 registering servers with, 54-55 for remote partition, 309 Standard dimension, 114 star schema, 11, 116 starting Aggregation Design Wizard, 314 Analysis Services 2005, 368 BIDS, 31 Business Intelligence Wizard, 231, 236, 246, 297 Cube Wizard, 44, 145 Data Mining Wizard, 492, 513 Data Source View Wizard, 40 Data Source Wizard, 36 debugging mode, 267 Dimension Wizard, 113, 241 MDX query editor, 58 Merge Partition dialog, 385 Migration Wizard, 28 Partition Wizard, 304, 382 Pivot Table and Pivot Chart Wizard (Excel), 522 Process dialog, 371 Report Wizard, 598, 605 Synchronize Database Wizard, 392 Upgrade Advisor, 24 Usage-Based Optimization Wizard, 460 Statement actions, 281 Statement command (MDX), 125 static versus non-static functions, 331-332 StdDev function (MDX), 776 StdDevP function (MDX), 776 stopping Analysis Services 2005, 368 storage modes See also specific storage modes Analysis Services support for, 437-438 cell writeback and, 358, 360 choosing, 17, 228, 312-313, 438 overview, 15-17 partitions and, 312-314, 315, 431-432 performance and, 438, 447 proactive caching and, 638-642, 644-645, 648, 651-656 Storage Options dialog enabling proactive caching, 645-646 Latency option, 654-655 polling query option, 648-649 real-time ROLAP and, 656, 657 SilenceInterval option, 654 SilenceOverrideInterval option, 654 for timed updates, 649-650 StorageMode property, 165 stored procedures See COM (Component Object Model) UDFs; NET assemblies string manipulation functions (MDX), 87 See also specific functions strings, functions returning, 697 StripCalculatedMembers function (MDX), 777 StrToMember function (MDX), 87, 777 StrToSet function (MDX), 777-778 StrToTuple function (MDX), 778 StrToValue function (MDX), 779 subcubes CREATE SUBCUBE statement for, 197-198 DROP SUBCUBE statement for, 198 EXISTING keyword and, 199-200 SUB-SELECT clause for querying, 200-201 WHERE clause and, 199 subject orientation of data warehouses, subscriptions for reports, 628 SUB-SELECT clause (MDX), 200-201 Subset function (MDX), 779 Sum function (MDX), 165, 779 Surface Area Configuration utility, 398-399 synchronization credentials for, 395-396 from default instance to new instance, 392-395 defined, 392 Synchronization Progress page for, 396 Synchronization command, 395 Synchronize Database Wizard, 392-395 Next Page Next Page Index T tables See also dimension tables; fact tables customizing in the DSV, 99-101 from multiple data sources, in DSVs, 108-109 properties, 105 for reports, 601-602, 608-610 tabular reports, 600 See also Reporting Services Tail function (MDX), 780 Teradata, data sources supported from, 91 This function (MDX), 780 Thornthwaite, Warren (The Data Warehouse Lifecycle ), 13 tick marks in pivot tables (Excel), 537-538 tilde (~) as unary operator, 218, 219, 220, 222 Time dimension creating, 136-139 described, 114 overview, 136 Type property values, 139 Time intelligence described, 230 setting up the enhancement, 236-238 uses for, 235-236 using, 238-239 Time Series algorithm, 490 time variance of data warehouses, timed updates with proactive caching, 649-650 timeout value for reports, 625 ToggleDrillState function (MDX), 780 TopCount function (MDX), 204-205, 780-781 TopPercent function (MDX), 781-782 TopSum function (MDX), 782 Total Memory Limit server property, 474 Trace Properties dialog, 476-477 translations browsing in cubes, 176-178 creating for cubes, 175-176 defining in dimensions, 133-134 tuples See also sets cell writeback and, 341 constructing explicitly, 702 defined, 68 functions returning, 698 local cubes and, 547 order of members in, 68 overview, 68-69 representation of, 68, 80 simple, for single cells, 69 stored procedure for filtering, 330-331 TupleToStr function (MDX), 783 Next Page Next Page Index U UDFs (user-defined functions) See also specific kinds COM-based, 321, 322-326 COM-based versus NET-based, 321-322, 338 dimension security approach using, 681-683 NET assemblies (stored procedures), 81, 321-322, 325-338 UDM (Unified Dimensional Model) See also cubes analyzing data using Data Analyzer, 557-563 architecture, 17-18, 144 cell writeback, 341 creating a report model from, 630-632 creating reports based on, 604-624 as a cube, 341 cube tuning, 430-437 design optimization, 424-437 dimension tuning, 424-430 dimension writeback, 246-249, 341-353 key elements, 17 OLAP world and, 145 overview, 17-18, 143-145 perspectives, 144, 173-175, 176-178 relational reporting and, 121 relational world and, 145 unary operators Adventure Works example, 221-222 business scenario illustrating, 219-221 empty, 218 table summarizing, 218 UnaryOperatorColumn property, 218, 219 unbalanced hierarchies, Unified Dimensional Model See UDM Union function (MDX), 783-784 UniqueName functions (MDX), 784-785 UnknownMember function (MDX), 785 UnknownMember property, 227 Unorder function (MDX), 208, 785-786 Unrestricted permission set, 333, 386 UPDATE CUBE statement (MDX), 358-359 updating dimension members See dimension writeback updating measure values See cell writeback Upgrade Advisor, 24-27 upgrading to Analysis Services 2005 installing without a test machine, 27-28 migrating your databases, 28-31 running the Upgrade Advisor, 24-27 testing the upgrade process on a test machine, 27 URL actions browsing, 285-287 creating, 282-285 described, 281 Invocation property, 285 target types, 282 usage-based aggregation design, 458-463 Usage-Based Optimization Wizard, 460-463 USE LIBRARY syntax, 325 USE_EQUAL_ALLOCATION keyword, 361, 362 USE_EQUAL_INCREMENT keyword, 364 user-defined functions See UDFs username detection, 665 UserName function (MDX), 689, 786 users See also access permissions adding as an administrator, 369 of reports, security settings for, 625, 627 USE_WEIGHTED_ALLOCATION BY keyword, 362 USE_WEIGHTED_INCREMENT keyword, 364 Next Page Next Page Index V validating aggregations, 316 data mining, data set for, 485 databases when migrating, 30 DSVs, 106 ValidMeasure function (MDX), 786-787 Value function (MDX), 787 value operators, 700-701 Var function (MDX), 787-788 Variance function (MDX), 787-788 VarianceP function (MDX), 787-788 VarP function (MDX), 787-788 VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), external functions from, 321, 322-323 View Connections dialog (Data Analyzer), 558 Visible property of measures, 167 Visual Studio, BIDS compared to, 31 VisualTotals connection property, 533 VisualTotals function (MDX) in AS2000 versus AS2005, 788, 790-791 global impact of, 788-790 overview, 788-793 Next Page Next Page Index W weighted allocation for cell writeback, 362-363 what-if (in-session) scenarios See cell writeback WHERE clause (MDX) cube space not restricted by, 199 described, 58 Excel generation of, 532 as optional, 70 slicer specification by, 72-74 Wickert, Dave (Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Operations Guide ), 439 WITH clause (MDX) AS keyword in, 75 for calculated members, 75-77 calculated members in, 188 CREATE CELL CALCULATION statement in, 192 described, 71 MEMBER keyword in, 75 named sets in, 74-75, 186-187 as optional, 70 overview, 74 Rank function in, 76 SOLVE_ORDER parameter, 75 syntax, 74 WithAttr function (MDX), 793 writeback adding a member to a dimension, 345-348 business scenarios with uses for, 246 cell writeback, 341, 354-365 defined, 93, 341 deleting dimension data, 351-353 dimension writeback, 246-249, 341-353 enabling, 246-248 modifying data of dimension members, 348-351 objects, 57 prerequisites for dimension writeback, 342 updating a dimension, 342-345 updating a single cell value, 358-361 updating non-leaf cell values using allocation, 361-365 WriteEnable property, 342 WTD function (MDX), 794 Next Page Next Page Index X XML/A (XML for Analysis) AMO and, 371 AS2005 support for, 15 automating administrative processes using, 402-414 dimension writeback and, 341 performance and, 15 remote requests to server using, 328 requests for dimension details, 125-126 SOAP Envelope tags for, 373 XOR operator (MDX), 80, 794 Next Page Next Page Index Y YTD function (MDX), 794 Next Page Next Page List of Figures Appendix A: MDX Function and Operator Reference Figure A-1: Behavior of Ancestor () Figure A-2: Behavior of Ascendants () Figure A-3: member.Children Figure A-4: Cousin () function Figure A-5: Behavior of descendants () with SELF FLAG Figure A-6: Behavior of descendants () with AFTER flag Figure A-7: Behavior of descendants () with BEFORE flag Figure A-8: Behavior of descendants () with SELF_AND_AFTER flag Figure A-9: Behavior of descendants () with SELF_AND_BEFORE flag Figure A-10: Behavior of descendants () with BEFORE_AND_AFTER flags Figure A-11: Behavior of descendants () with SELF_BEFORE_AFTER flags Figure A-12: Behavior of Descendants () with LEAVES flag Figure A-13: DrillDownLevel () Figure A-14: DrillDownLevelBottom () Figure A-15: DrillDownLevelTop () Figure A-16: DrillDownMember () Figure A-17: DrillDownMemberBottom () Figure A-18: DrillDownMemberTop () Figure A-19: DrillUpLevel () Figure A-20: DrillUpMember () Figure A-21: FirstChild and LastChild Figure A-22: FirstSibling and LastSibling Figure A-23: Microsoft Implementation of IsGeneration () Figure A-24: Lag () and Lead () Figure A-25: Behavior of LastPeriods () Figure A-26a: Members selected by Members operator Figure A-26b: Members selected by Level.Members Figure A-27: OpeningPeriod () and ClosingPeriod () Figure A-28: Sample product hierarchy Figure A-29: Units shipped in hierarchy Figure A-30: Hierarchy preserved in ordering Figure A-31: Hierarchy preserved when ordering a set without parents Figure A-32: Hierarchy preserved when ordering a set with multiple dimensions Figure A-33: ParallelPeriod () operator Figure A-34: Behavior of Parent Figure A-35: Behavior of PeriodsToDate () Figure A-36: NextMember and PrevMember Figure A-37: Diagram of Siblings Figure A-38: Results of VisualTotals () in AS 2005 Figure A-39: Results of two VisualTotals () using same parent member Figure A-40: Sample results from VisualTotals () Next Page Next Page List of Tables Appendix A: MDX Function and Operator Reference Table A.1: List of Operators Next Page List of Code Examples Chapter 3: Introduction to MDX Example Example Example Example Example ... Next Page Analysis Services 2005 Analysis Services 2005 is part of Microsoft's product SQL Server 2005 SQL Server 2005 is the latest SQL Server release from Microsoft in November of 2005 In addition... environment for managing SQL Server, Analysis Services, Integration Services, and Reporting Services SQL Profiler in the SQL Server 2005 releases supports profiling Analysis Services 2005, which helps... Analysis Services 2005 as a named instance Analysis Services 2005 provides you with a wizard to migrate your databases from an Analysis Services 2000 server to an Analysis Services 2005 instance Analysis