Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® Analysis Services 2008 with MDX

2.3. Using Business Intelligence Development Studio

Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) is the development environment for designing your Analysis Services databases. To start Business Intelligence Development Studio, click the Windows Start button and go to All Programs Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio. If you're familiar with Visual Studio, you might be thinking that BIDS looks a lot like the Visual Studio environment. You're right; in Analysis Services 2008, you create Analysis Services projects in an environment that is Visual Studio. Working in Visual Studio offers many benefits, such as easy access to source control and support for multiple projects within the same Visual Studio solution (a solution within Visual Studio is a collection of projects such as an Analysis Services project, a C# project, an Integration Services project, or a Reporting Services project).

2.3.1. Creating a Project in the Business Intelligence Development Studio

To design your Analysis Services database you need to create a project using BIDS. Typically you will design your database within BIDS, make appropriate changes, and finally send the database to your Analysis Services instance. Each Analysis Services project within BIDS becomes a database ...