Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10. Cubes
in
the
Larger
Context
Throughout this topic you have learned how to develop and maintain an Analysis
Services solution. This topic started with an introduction to data warehousing and di-
mensional modeling. You learned about the differences between fact and dimension
tables and how this can help you when developing reporting solutions, making it sim-
pler to query databases.
After that, you started to develop your first cube solution and you got exposed to con-
cepts such as dimensions, attributes, and measures. In Chapter 5 , Querying Your
Cube , you got an introduction to MDX and how you can use the query language to
write queries that solve different business problems. It then started to get more ad-
vanced, and in Chapter 6 , Adding Functionality to Your Cube , you extended the solu-
tion by adding calculations and KPIs to the cube. Chapter 7 , Securing Your Cube Pro-
ject , contained information on how to secure your cube and Chapter 8 , Using Aggreg-
ations to Performance Optimize a Cube , contained information on how to add aggreg-
ations to increase the performance of your BI solution.
In the last chapter you learned how to work with the in-memory configuration of Ana-
lysis Services called tabular mode . Hopefully, this topic so far has shown the capab-
ilities available in Analysis Services to a BI developer.
In this chapter we will look at how Analysis Services fit into the larger architecture of
BI solutions. It will cover the following topics:
• The available frontend tools from Microsoft
• Third-party frontend tools that can query Analysis Services
Using Microsoft frontend tools to query
Analysis Services
Analysis Services is not the BI tool from Microsoft. It is only one of the available tools
to a BI developer. To get a complete BI solution, the analytical component is not the
solecomponent.Morefunctionalityisneeded,especiallyafrontendtoolforendusers.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search