Contents in Microsoft Office

Drawer Code 128 Code Set C in Microsoft Office Contents

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Conditional Formatting Base Query Conditional Formatting Measure Member Aliases Non-measure Dimension Member Aliases DrillDownMember Drillthrough 1/2 Drillthrough 2/2

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Where to Use MDX SSRS SSIS SQL DMX XMLA Winforms and Webforms Performance Point Server and ProClarity Third-Party Software Copy and Paste

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hank you to my editor, Wendy Rinaldi In particular, she demonstrated remarkable vision, enthusiasm, and patience Also thanks to Joya Anthony for her efforts in getting my original draft into a publishable book and to Melinda Lytle who helped with the graphics Finally, I am indebted to Deepak Puri who displayed remarkable insight as the technical reviewer of the MDX queries

Business intelligence (BI) is a very rapidly growing area of the software market Microsoft s core product in this field is SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) It is revolutionizing how companies view and work with data Its purpose is to turn data into information, giving meaning to the data There are two main objects in SSAS that support this goal cubes and data-mining models If these can be visualized easily, the information they contain is transformed into intelligence, thus leading to timely and effective decision making Cube information can be extracted and visualized with Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) queries Data-mining model information can be extracted and visualized with Data Mining Extensions (DMX) queries This book is devoted to cubes and the MDX language It takes you from first principles in MDX query writing and builds into more and more sophisticated queries This book is a practical one with lots of syntax to try on nearly every page (and you can copy and paste from the download files for this book, if you prefer not to type)

You will need two databases First, the SSAS Adventure Works DW 2008 database (called Adventure Works DW in SSAS 2005), which contains the Adventure Works cube The MDX queries are written against this cube Second, the SQL Server AdventureWorksDW2008 database (called AdventureWorksDW in SQL Server 2005), which provides the source data required by the SSAS Adventure Works DW 2008 database

You can download the required SSAS database (with the Adventure Works cube) and SQL Server database from wwwcodeplexcom (both 2008 and 2005 versions) As of this writing, the URL was http://wwwcodeplexcom/MSFTDBProdSamples/Release/ ProjectReleasesaspx ReleaseID=16040 Choose SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2005 from the Releases box URLs can change if you have difficulty then search wwwcodeplexcom on Adventure Works Samples

Before you begin the download, you might want to check the two hyperlinks, Database Prerequisites and Installing Databases Download and run SQL2008AdventureWorks All Databasesx86msi (there are also 64-bit versions, x64 and ia64) As the installation proceeds, you will have to choose an instance name for your SQL Server When the installation finishes, you will have some new SQL Server databases, including AdventureWorksDW2008 (used to build the SSAS Adventure Works cube) You will not have the cube just yet

The download file is called AdventureWorksBICImsi (there are also 64-bit versions, x64 and IA64) With 2005, you can also go through Setup or Control Panel to add the samples this is not possible in 2008 Unlike in 2008, the download and subsequent installation do not result in the new SQL Server source database appearing under SQL Server in SSMS You have to manually attach the database You can do this from SSMS (right-click the Databases folder and choose Attach) if you have some DBA knowledge Or you might ask your SQL Server DBA to do this for you If you click the Release Notes hyperlink on the download page, you will find out how to do this from SQL but this is an MDX book! You will not have the cube just yet