Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services

Alberto Ferrari, Chris Webb, Marco Russo

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Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services

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Overview

Table of Contents

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A real-world guide to designing cubes with Analysis Services 2008
Model dimensions and measure groups in BI Development Studio
Implement security, drill-through, and MDX calculations
Learn how to deploy, monitor, and performance-tune your cube
Filled with best practices and useful hints and tips

Book Details

Language : English
Paperback : 360 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]
Release Date : July 2009
ISBN : 1847197221
ISBN 13 : 9781847197221
Author(s) : Alberto Ferrari, Chris Webb, Marco Russo
Topics and Technologies : All Books, Microsoft Servers, Enterprise, Microsoft, Microsoft SQL Server

Back to BOOK PAGE

Preface
Chapter 1: Designing the Data Warehouse for Analysis Services
Chapter 2: Building Basic Dimensions and Cubes
Chapter 3: Designing More Complex Dimensions
Chapter 4: Measures and Measure Groups
Chapter 5: Adding Transactional Data such as Invoice Line and Sales Reason
Chapter 6: Adding Calculations to the Cube
Chapter 7: Adding Currency Conversion
Chapter 8: Query Performance Tuning
Chapter 9: Securing the Cube
Chapter 10: Productionization
Chapter 11: Monitoring Cube Performance and Usage
Index

Preface

Chapter 1: Designing the Data Warehouse for Analysis Services
- The source database
  - The OLTP database
  - The data warehouse
  - The data mart
- Data modeling for Analysis Services
  - Fact tables and dimension tables
  - Star schemas and snowflake schemas
  - Junk dimensions
  - Degenerate dimensions
  - Slowly Changing Dimensions
  - Bridge tables, or factless fact tables
  - Snapshot and transaction fact tables
  - Updating fact and dimension tables
  - Natural and surrogate keys
  - Unknown members, key errors, and NULLability
- Physical database design for Analysis Services
  - Multiple data sources
  - Data types and Analysis Services
  - SQL queries generated during cube processing
    - Dimension processing
    - Dimensions with joined tables
    - Reference dimensions
    - Fact dimensions
    - Distinct count measures
    - Indexes in the data mart
  - Usage of schemas
  - Naming conventions
  - Views versus the Data Source View
- Summary

Chapter 2: Building Basic Dimensions and Cubes
- Choosing an edition of Analysis Services
- Setting up a new Analysis Services project
- Creating data sources
- Creating Data Source Views
- Designing simple dimensions
  - Using the 'New Dimension' wizard
  - Using the Dimension Editor
    - Adding new attributes
    - Configuring a Time dimension
    - Creating user hierarchies
    - Configuring attribute relationships
- Building a Simple Cube
  - Using the 'New Cube' wizard
  - Deployment
  - Processing
- Summary

Chapter 3: Designing More Complex Dimensions
- Grouping and Banding
  - Grouping
  - Banding
- Slowly Changing Dimensions
  - Type I SCDs
  - Type II SCDs
    - Modeling attribute relationships on a Type II SCD
    - Handling member status
  - Type III SCDs
- Junk dimensions
- Ragged hierarchies
  - Parent/child hierarchies
  - Ragged hierarchies with HideMemberIf
- Summary

Chapter 4: Measures and Measure Groups
- Measures and aggregation
  - Useful properties of measures
    - Format String
    - Display folders
  - Built-in measure aggregation types
    - Basic aggregation types
    - Distinct Count
    - None
    - Semi-additive aggregation types
    - By Account
  - Dimension calculations
    - Unary operators and weights
    - Custom Member Formulas
  - Non-aggregatable values
- Measure groups
  - Creating multiple measure groups
  - Creating measure groups from dimension tables
  - Handling different dimensionality
  - Handling different granularities
  - Non-aggregatable measures: a different approach
  - Using linked dimensions and measure groups
  - Role-playing dimensions
- Dimension/measure group relationships
  - Fact relationships
  - Referenced relationships
  - Data mining relationships
- Summary

Chapter 5: Adding Transactional Data such as Invoice Line and Sales Reason
- Details about transactional data
- Drillthrough
  - Actions
  - Drillthrough actions
    - Drillthrough Columns order
    - Drillthrough and calculated members
  - Drillthrough modeling
    - Drillthrough using a transaction details dimension
    - Drillthrough with ROLAP dimensions
    - Drillthrough on Alternate Fact Table
    - Drillthrough recap
- Many-to-many dimension relationships
  - Implementing a many-to-many dimension relationship
  - Advanced modelling with many-to-many relationships
  - Performance issues

Summary

Chapter 6: Adding Calculations to the Cube
- Different kinds of calculated members
- Common calculations
  - Simple calculations
  - Referencing cell values
  - Aggregating members
  - Year-to-dates
  - Ratios over a hierarchy
  - Previous period growths
  - Same period previous year
  - Moving averages
  - Ranks
  - Formatting calculated measures
- Calculation dimensions
  - Implementing a simple calculation dimension
  - Calculation dimension pitfalls and problems
    - Attribute overwrite
    - Limitations of calculated members
  - Calculation dimension best practices
- Named sets
  - Regular named sets
  - Dynamic named sets
- Summary

Chapter 7: Adding Currency Conversion
- Introduction to currency conversion
  - Data collected in a single currency
  - Data collected in a multiple currencies
- Where to perform currency conversion
- The Add Business Intelligence Wizard
  - Concepts and prerequisites
  - How to use the Add Business Intelligence wizard
    - Data collected in a single currency with reporting in multiple currencies
    - Data collected in multiple currencies with reporting in a single currency
    - Data stored in multiple currencies with reporting in multiple currencies
- Measure expressions
  - DirectSlice property
  - Writeback
- Summary

Chapter 8: Query Performance Tuning
- How Analysis Services processes queries
- Performance tuning methodology
- Designing for performance
- Performance-specific design features
  - Partitions
    - Why partition?
    - Building partitions
    - Planning a partitioning strategy
    - Unexpected partition scans
  - Aggregations
    - Creating an initial aggregation design
    - Usage-based optimization
    - Monitoring partition and aggregation usage
    - Building aggregations manually
    - Common aggregation design issues
- MDX calculation performance
  - Diagnosing Formula Engine performance problems
  - Calculation performance tuning
    - Tuning algorithms used in MDX
    - Using calculated members to cache numeric values
    - Tuning the implementation of MDX
- Caching
  - Formula cache scopes
  - Other scenarios that restrict caching
  - Cache warming
    - Create Cache statement
    - Running batches of queries
- Scale-up and scale-out
- Summary

Chapter 9: Securing the Cube
- Sample security requirements
- Analysis Services security features
  - Roles and role membership
  - Securable objects
  - Creating roles
  - Membership of multiple roles
  - Testing roles
- Administrative security
- Data security
  - Granting read access to cubes
  - Cell security
  - Dimension security
  - Applying security to measures
  - Dynamic security
  - Dynamic dimension security
  - Dynamic security with stored procedures
  - Dimension security and parent/child hierarchies
- Dynamic cell security
- Accessing Analysis Services from outside a domain
- Managing security
- Security and query performance
  - Cell security
  - Dimension security
  - Dynamic security
- Summary

Chapter 10: Productionization
- Making changes to a cube in production
- Managing partitions
  - Relational versus Analysis Services partitioning
  - Building a template partition
  - Generating partitions in Integration Services
- Managing processing
  - Dimension processing
  - Partition processing
  - Lazy Aggregations
  - Processing reference dimensions
  - Handling processing errors
  - Managing processing with Integration Services
  - Push-mode processing
  - Proactive caching
- Analysis Services data directory maintenance
- Backup
- Copying databases between servers
- Summary

Chapter 11: Monitoring Cube Performance and Usage
- Analysis Services and the operating system
  - Resources shared by the operating system
    - CPU
    - Memory
    - I/O operations
  - Tools to monitor resource consumption
    - Windows Task Manager
    - Performance counters
    - Resource Monitor
  - Analysis Services memory management
    - Memory differences between 32 bit and 64 bit
    - Controlling the Analysis Services Memory Manager
    - Out of memory conditions in Analysis Services
  - Sharing SQL Server and Analysis Services on the same machine
- Monitoring processing performance
  - Monitoring processing with trace data
    - SQL Server Profiler
    - ASTrace
    - XMLA
    - Flight Recorder
  - Monitoring Processing with Performance Monitor counters
  - Monitoring Processing with Dynamic Management Views
- Monitoring query performance
  - Monitoring queries with trace data
  - Monitoring queries with Performance Monitor counters
  - Monitoring queries with Dynamic Management Views
  - MDX Studio
- Monitoring usage
  - Monitoring Usage with Trace Data
  - Monitoring usage with Performance Monitor counters
  - Monitoring usage with Dynamic Management Views
  - Activity Viewer
- How to build a complete monitoring solution
- Summary

Index

Back to BOOK PAGE

Alberto Ferrari

Alberto Ferrari is a consultant and trainer for the BI development area with the Microsoft suite for Business Intelligence. His main interests are in the methodological approaches to BI development and he works as a trainer for software houses that need to design complex BI solutions.

He is a founder, with Marco Russo, of the site www.sqlbi.com, where they publish whitepapers and articles about SQL Server technology. He co-authored the “SqlBI Methodology”, which can be found on the SqlBI site.

Chris Webb

Chris Webb has been working with Microsoft Business Intelligence tools for almost ten years in a variety of roles and industries. He is an independent consultant and trainer based in the UK, specializing in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services and the MDX query language. He is the co-author of “MDX Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 and Hyperion Essbase”, is a regular speaker at conferences, and blogs on BI at http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com. He is a recipient of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award for his work in the SQL Server community.

Marco Russo

Marco Russo is a consultant and trainer in software development based in Italy, focusing on development for Microsoft Windows operating systems. He’s involved in several Business Intelligence projects, including those of relational and multidimensional warehouse design, with particular experience in sectors like banking and financial services, manufacturing and commercial distribution.

He previously wrote several books about .NET and recently co-authored “Introducing Microsoft LINQ” and “Programming Microsoft LINQ”, both published by Microsoft Press. He also wrote “The many-to-many revolution”, a mini-book about many-to-many dimension relationships in Analysis Services, and co-authored the “SQLBI Methodology” with Alberto Ferrari. Marco is a founder of SQLBI (http://www.sqlbi.com) and his blog is available at http://sqlblog.com/blogs/marco_russo

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has several years of experience in SSAS development and need a compass check to make sure that he follows the right track. Read More

Each chapter remains concise and tells you what you need to know and where to go if you want to find out more by means of links to blog posts, white papers and other books as well as downloadable sample code. Read More

Code Downloads

Download the code and support files for this book.

Submit Errata

Please let us know if you have found any errors not listed on this list by completing our errata submission form. Our editors will check them and add them to this list. Thank you.

Errata

- 3 submitted: last submission 01 Apr 2013

page 157	Typo	11 Sep 09


page 199	Technical	26 Nov 09


page 219	Technical/typo	21 Oct 09


page 302	technical	14 Aug 09

Errata type: Technical | Page number: 246, 247

The picture at page 247 has an error: the Bridge_ResellerUsers table shouldn’t have a primary key like it is indicated in the picture. Thus, the relational table should be defined either without a primary key or with a primary key composed by both ID_Reseller and ID_User.

Errata type: URLs | Page number: 157

The URL for Attribute overwrite discussion (http://tinyurl.com/attoverwrite) has been removed from the Internet.
The original URL for Chris Webb's BI Blog-tiny URL is Chris Webb's BI Blog-original URL.

Sample chapters

You can view our sample chapters and prefaces of this title on PacktLib or download sample chapters in PDF format.

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What you will learn from this book

Build a data mart suitable for use with Analysis Services
Create and configure an Analysis Services project in Business Intelligence Development Studio
Use the Dimension Wizard and the Dimension Editor to build dimensions
Create measure groups and associate them with dimensions
Add calculations to the cube, including implementing currency conversion and a date tool dimension
Explore the security model, including dimension security and cell security, and implement dynamic security
Tune queries to get the best possible performance
Automate processing and partition creation
Monitor your cube to see who's actually using it

In Detail

Microsoft's SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 is an OLAP server that allows users to analyze business data quickly and easily. However, designing cubes in Analysis Services can be a complex task: it's all too easy to make mistakes early on in development that lead to serious problems when the cube is in production. Learning the best practices for cube design before you start your project will help you avoid these problems and ensure that your project is a success.

This book offers practical advice on how to go about designing and building fast, scalable, and maintainable cubes that will meet your users' requirements and help make your Business Intelligence project a success.

This book gives readers insight into the best practices for designing and building Microsoft Analysis Services 2008 cubes. It also provides details about server architecture, performance tuning, security, and administration of an Analysis Services solution.

In this book, you will learn how to design and implement Analysis Services cubes. Starting from designing a data mart for Analysis Services, through the creation of dimensions and measure groups, to putting the cube into production, we'll explore the whole of the development lifecycle.

This book is an invaluable guide for anyone who is planning to use Microsoft Analysis Services 2008 in a Business Intelligence project.

A hands-on guide to designing Analysis Services cubes

Approach

This is a practical tutorial for Analysis Services that shows readers how to solve problems commonly encountered while designing cubes, and explains which features of Analysis Services work well and which should be avoided. The book walks through the whole cube development lifecycle, from building dimensions, cubes and calculations to tuning and moving the cube into production.

Who this book is for

This book is aimed at Analysis Services developers who already have some experience but who want to go into more detail on advanced topics, and who want to learn best practices for cube design.