Self-service Business Intelligence, Creating Value from Data - Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development - page 12

Getting user value through self-service
reporting
SQL Server Analysis Services is an application that allows you to create a semantic
model that can be used to analyze very large amounts of data with great speed. The
models can either be user created, or created and maintained by IT.
If the user wants to create it, they can do so, by using a component in Microsoft Excel
2010 and upwards called PowerPivot. If you run Microsoft Excel 2013, it is included
in the installed product, and you just need to enable it. In Microsoft Excel 2010, you
have to download it as a separate add-in that you either can find on the Microsoft
homepage or on the site called http://www.powerpivot.com . PowerPivot creates and
uses a client-side semantic model that runs in the context of the Microsoft Excel pro-
cess; you can only use Microsoft Excel as a way of analyzing the data. If you just
would like to run a user created model, you do not need SQL Server at all, you just
need Microsoft Excel. On the other hand, if you would like to maintain user created
models centrally then you need, both SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint.
Instead, if you would like IT to create and maintain a central semantic model, then IT
need to install SQL Server Analysis Services. IT will, in most cases, not use Microsoft
Excel to create the semantic models. Instead, IT will use Visual Studio as their tool.
Visual Studio is much more suitable for IT compared to Microsoft Excel. Not only will
they use it to create and maintain SQL Server Analysis Services semantic models,
they will also use it for other database related tasks. It is a tool that can be connected
to a source control system allowing several developers to work on the same project.
The semantic models that they create from Visual Studio will run on a server that sev-
eral clients can connect to simultaneously. The benefit of running a server-side model
is that they can use the computational power of the server, this means that you can
access more data. It also means that you can use a variety of tools to display the in-
formation.
This topic will focus on IT created models, but the information described in Chapter
9 , In-memory, the Future , can be used to learn how to create models in PowerPivot.
Both approaches enable users to do their own self-service reporting. In the case
where PowerPivot is used they have complete freedom; but they also need the ne-