MSAS : The Wizards

The primary aim of Microsoft was to ease the process of building and using data warehouses. A large number of wizards, editors and tools have been built into the Analysis services to fulfill this objective. The wizards available for use are: The Cube wizard that helps the user build all the structures necessary to create an OLAP cube. It walks the user through the entire cube design and implementation process. The user can map the data sources, create dimensions and define measures using this wizard. The Cube Editor is useful in editing cube structures or in creating new cubes. The simple drag and drop feature makes the operation very easy. It complements the cube wizard and can be used to edit the cubes created in the Cube wizard.

The Dimension Wizard is used to create shared dimensions that can be used by cubes across the data warehouse or a private dimension to be used by a single cube. Data base dimension tables can be mapped to dimension levels and the built in time dimension generator can be used to create a variety of time dimensions based on a date time column in the database. The dimension wizard can also be used to create a star or snowflake schema in the data warehouse. Parent child, virtual or data mining dimensions can be created with ease. The Dimension Editor complements the Dimension wizard and can be used to edit existing dimensions or create new ones. The dimensions can be previewed in the Dimension editor.

The Incremental Update Wizard guides the user through the process of incorporating new data into the cube. This can be done without reloading the aggregations or reloading all data.

The Partition Wizard is used to create partitions in a cube and enable the user distribute and optimize the cube’s data into discrete segments on a single server or on multiple servers. Multiple partition creation is a feature available only in the Enterprise edition of SQL Server 2000. The partition wizard appears when the cube folder is right clicked and partitions >new partitions is selected.

Ads

The Storage Design Wizard specifies the storage mode of the cube. Users can design aggregations that are appropriate to the intended use of the cube. The option inbuilt into this wizard enables a tradeoff between response time and storage requirements according to the needs of the application.

123

Read Next: MSAS : Analysis services Tools for Extended Functionality

 

This tutorial is part of a Analysis Services Training tutorial series. Read it from the beginning and learn yourself.

Analysis Services Training

1. MSAS - Browsing the Dependency Network
2. MSAS - Building a Relational Decision Tree Model
3. MSAS - Introduction to Data Mining
4. MSAS - Applying security to a Dimension
5. Tutorial 65: MSAS - Managing Cube Roles
6. MSAS - Understanding Database Roles
7. MSAS - Securing User Authentication
8. MSAS - Introducing Analysis Services Security
9. MSAS - Writebacks
10. MSAS - Defining and Creating Drillthrough
11. MSAS - Defining and Creating Auctions
12. MSAS - Creating and Maintaining Calculated Members in Virtual Cubes
13. MSAS - Building a Virtual Cube
14. MSAS - Understanding Virtual Cubes
15. MSAS - Introducing Solve Order
16. MSAS - Implementing Calculations Using MDX Part 2
17. MSAS - Implementing Calculations Using MDX Part 1
18. MSAS - Merging Partitions
19. MSAS - Introduction and Managing Partitions
20. MSAS - Troubleshooting Cube Processing
21. MSAS - Optimizing Cube Processing
22. MSAS - Processing Dimensions and Cubes
23. MSAS - Introducing Dimension and Cube Processing
24. MSAS: Optimization Tuning Part 2
25. MSAS: Optimization Tuning Part 1
26. MSAS: Usage-Based Optimization
27. MSAS: Analysis Services Aggregations
28. MSAS: The Storage Design Wizard
29. MSAS: Analysis Server Cube Storage
30. MSAS: Defining Cube Properties
31. MSAS: Introduction and Working with Measures
32. MSAS: Introduction and Working with Cubes
33. MSAS: Virtual Dimensions
34. MSAS: Introducing Member Properties
35. MSAS: Creating Custom Rollups
36. MSAS: Creating a Time Dimension
37. MSAS: Understanding Hierarchies
38. MSAS: Dimension Storage Modes and Levels
39. MSAS: Working with Levels and Hierarchies
40. MSAS: Working with Parent-Child Dimensions
41. MSAS : Basics of Levels
42. MSAS : Working with Standard Dimensions
43. MSAS : Shared vs Private Dimensions
44. Understanding Dimension Basics
45. MSAS : Office 2000 OLAP Components
46. MSAS : Client Architecture
47. MSAS : Cube Storage options
48. MSAS : Meta data Repository
49. MSAS : Analysis services Tools for Extended Functionality
50. MSAS : The Wizards
51. MSAS : The Analysis Manager and Analysis Server
52. MSAS : The Data warehousing framework of SQL Server 2000 - Part 2
53. MSAS : The Data warehousing framework of SQL Server 2000 - Part 1
54. MSAS : Microsoft Data Warehousing Overview
55. MSAS : Browsing the Cube
56. MSAS : Designing Storage and Processing the Cube
57. MSAS : Building the Cube Part #3
58. MSAS : Building the Cube Part #2
59. MSAS : Building the Cube Part #1
60. MSAS : Setting up the Database in Analysis Server
61. MSAS : Preparing to Create the Cube
62. MSAS : Introducing Analysis Manager Wizards
63. Microsoft Analysis Services Installation
64. MSAS - Applying OLAP Cubes
65. Understanding OLAP Models
66. Designing the Dimensional Model and Preparing the data for OLAP
67. Design of the data warehouse: Kimball Vs Inmon
68. Defining OLAP Solutions and Data Warehouse design
69. Microsoft Analysis Services Training
70. Data Warehouse database and OLTP database
71. Introduction to Data Warehousing

 

Comments