Parent child dimensions when viewed from within a cube reveal some interesting features. We will add an private employee parent child dimension to the sales cube and study the features thereof....   Read Article.

A level is an element of a dimension hierarchy that describes the hierarchy from the highest level to the lowest level of data. Levels exist within dimensions and are based on columns in the dimension table or member properties in the dimension. They specify the contents and structure of the dimension’s hierarchy and determine the members that are included...   Read Article.

Dimensions are created, based on dimension table columns, member properties, or from the structure of OLAP data mining models. When a dimension is defined, there are a number of possible approaches. Each approach produces a different dimension variety. Standard Dimensions are regular dimensions. They can be of two types. The standard star schema dimension...   Read Article.

The next 6 tutorials explains Building Dimensions using Dimensions Editor. Dimensional modeling is the conceptualization and visualization of numerical data models as a set of measures that are derived from the common parameters used in a business. It summarizes and rearranges data and presents views of data to support data analysis. Dimensional modeling...   Read Article.

PivotTable component in Office 2000 is the PivotTable report feature. It allows the user select and cross tabulate numerical values in ways that are similar to the processes of a cube. The earlier versions of this report in Excel could only extract values from relational data sources. The version under reference can present data directly form an OLAP...   Read Article.

The PivotTable Service:The interfaces used by client applications to access OLAP data and data mining data on the server are provided by the PivotTable Service. The PivotTable service is a set of tools that enable the transfer of OLAP cubes to client applications from the OLAP server. Two programming interfaces for querying data are available to the...   Read Article.

In the first tutorial of this series “Introduction to Data Warehousing and OLAP” we briefly touched upon storage options that are used in data warehousing. In the second chapter “ Introducing Analysis Manager Wizards” we learnt how to use the cube Storage wizard to set storage options for the cube we had created. In this section of the tutorial we will...   Read Article.

Metadata is a description of data. It provides a consistent way to describe data structures. It is used to describe data as it is being transformed and gives a clear explanation of the meaning of different fields, measures, levels and dimensions. All releases of Microsoft development and data management tools support and allow access to the Repository....   Read Article.

Analysis services provides various tools that can be programmatically used to extend its functionality. Analysis services supports OLE DB to meet the OLAP specific requirements and is also designed to meet the requirements for Data mining specifications. The Analysis services is made compatible with the ActiveX Data Objects(ADO) and its multidimensional...   Read Article.

The primary aim of Microsoft was to ease the process of building and using data warehouses. A large number of wizards, editors and tools have been built into the Analysis services to fulfill this objective. The wizards available for use are: The Cube wizard that helps the user build all the structures necessary to create an OLAP cube....   Read Article.

Analysis services is the middle tier server component of the MS SQL 2000. It manages multidimensional OLAP cubes of data and ease of access to such data to end users. It also enables user to create data mining models from the data in the cubes or in the relational databases....   Read Article.

This is part 2 of MSAS : The Data warehousing framework of SQL Server 2000. It's very important that you understand the concepts if you are really trying to get job in Data Warehousing field....   Read Article.

The Data warehousing framework is a set of components and API’s that implement the data warehousing features of the SQL server 2000. The common interface of the server known as the Enterprise Manager can be used by various components to build and use the data warehouse or a data mart....   Read Article.

Modern day enterprises believe that mission critical decisions should be information based. Vast information repositories and historical data available with them need to be analyzed and emerging patterns examined before any decisions are taken. Data warehousing and business intelligence solutions were looked upon as means of achieving this purpose....   Read Article.

This tutorial explains about the Cube Browser, it's a tool provided within the Analysis Services to display the results of the cube process without the need to add external software....   Read Article.

This tutorial covers the storage modes for the cube before it can be processed. The kind of storage selected will determine the query performance and enhance the cube efficiency....   Read Article.

This is part 3 in MSAS : Building the Cube series, If you have not completed reading part 1 and 2 , please do so before continuing with this tutorial...   Read Article.

This tutorial covers brief introduction to Analysis Manager Wizards, how to start, Previewing and Defining terms which helps to understand the navigation along with the screen shots....   Read Article.

This tutorial covers OLAP solutions used by Data warehouses and understanding Data Warehouse design. The enterprise needs to ask itself certain fundamental questions before actually launching on the process of designing the data warehouse. It must begin with a conviction that a data warehouse would really help its business and the return on investment...   Read Article.

This tutorial covers Designing the Dimensional Model, Dimensional Model schemas like Star Schema, Snowflake Schema, Optimizing star schema and Design of the Relational Database, OLAP Cubes and Data mining tools, Security considerations, metadata and backup and recovery plans....   Read Article.