3.2. Fundamental Concepts
A multidimensional database is typically referred to as a cube. The cube is the foundation of a multidimensional database, and each cube typically contains more than two dimensions. The Adventure Works cube in the sample database contains 21 dimensions. The SQL Server 2008 product samples need to be downloaded from http://www.codeplex.com/MSFTDBProdSamples. Find and download the SQL2008.AdventureWorks_DW_BI_v2008<architecture>.msi and install it on your machine where the architecture is x86, x64, or ia64. This package contains the sample relational database AdventureWorksDW2008 and the Analysis Services project AdventureWorks. You need to specify the SQL Server 2008 relational database instance to install the sample. Using Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), open the sample Adventure Works project from Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Samples\AdventureWorks 2008 Analysis Services Project\Enterprise. Deploy the project to your Analysis Services instance. If your SQL Server 2008 relational server and/or Analysis Services instance are named instances, you need to make changes to the data source and the Analysis Services target server as mentioned in Chapter 2. If you open the Adventure Works cube in BIDS you can see the measures and dimensions that make up the cube in the Cube Structure tab as shown in Figure 3-1.
Figure 3.1. Figure 3-1
The Measures object within a cube is a special cube dimension that is a collection of measures. ...
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