Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Summary

This chapter discusses the OLAP approach, SSAS terms, and the tools Microsoft provides to enable OLAP cubes. It presents a mini-methodology to follow that should help you get an OLAP project off the ground and running smoothly. These efforts are typically not simple, and a well-trained data warehouse analyst, BI specialist, or data architect is usually worth his or her weight in gold because of the results (and value) that can be achieved through good OLAP cube design.

Sometimes it is difficult to engage end users and get them to use an OLAP cube successfully. Easy-to-use third-party tools can greatly help with this problem.

From an SSAS point of view, the ease of control of storage methods, dimension creation, degrees of aggregation, ...