Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Analysis Services Step by Step

Creating MDX Queries

An MDX query is different from an MDX expression. An expression is a formula that calculates a single value. A query is a command that can retrieve many values from a cube, usually to create a report. The cube browser in the Cube Designer, like other reporting and data visualization applications used with Analysis Services, allows you to drag and drop dimensions and measures and generates MDX queries behind the scenes to retrieve values from a cube. You can use these tools to create reports without writing any MDX queries of your own. So why should you learn how to create an MDX query? Learning MDX will allow you to take advantage of some of the more advanced features of Analysis Services to create exactly the dataset you ...