About the Series ...
This
article is a member of the series Introduction to MSSQL Server Analysis
Services. The series is designed to provide hands-on application of
the fundamentals of MS SQL Server Analysis Services, with each installment
progressively presenting features and techniques designed to meet specific real
- world needs. For more information on the series, please see my initial
article, Creating Our First Cube.
Note: This article examines exciting new features of MSSQL
Server 2005. To
follow along with the steps we undertake, the following components, samples and
tools are recommended, and should be installed according to the respective
documentation that accompanies MSSQL Server 2005:
-
Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 Database Engine
-
Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS)
-
Business
Intelligence Development Studio
-
Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 sample databases
-
The Analysis
Services Tutorial sample projects and other samples that are available with the
installation of the above.
To
successfully replicate the steps of the article, you also need to have:
-
Membership
within one of the following:
-
the Administrators
local group on the Analysis Services computer
-
the Server
role in the instance of Analysis Services.
-
Read permissions within the SQL Server
2005 sample databases we access within our practice session.
Note: Current Service Pack updates are assumed for the operating system, MSSQL
Server 2005 ("MSSQL Server"), MSSQL Server 2005 Analysis
Services ("Analysis Services"), MSSQL Server 2005 Reporting
Services ("Reporting Services") and the related Books
Online and Samples. Images are from a Windows 2003
Server environment, within which I have also implemented MS Office 2003,
but the steps performed in the articles, together with the views that result,
will be quite similar within any environment that supports MSSQL Server 2005 and its component applications.
Introduction
The
release of MSSQL Server 2005 ushers in a plethora of enhancements over
the feature set available within MSSQL Server 2000. Proclaimed as the "BI
Release" for good reason, the integrated Microsoft business intelligence
solution has witnessed advances in power, scope and user friendliness that I
have found impressive, as I have begun implementing it among my clients. As a
Business Intelligence architect, I am discovering that, along with these
enormous improvements, the further integration of MSSQL Server, Analysis
Services and Reporting Services within the centralized Business
Intelligence Development Studio, has proven to be a dramatic step in the "commoditization
of BI" that I have predicted since I began working with MS OLAP Services
in MSSQL Server 7.0, through its further evolution to MSSQL Server 2000
Analysis Services.
In
this article, I will introduce a significant improvement that underlies the new
Analysis Services development approach, the Data Source View. A Data
Source View is a design-time object that makes its home in the workbench
environment of the Business Intelligence Development Studio. Its
purpose, as we shall see, is to provide an abstract layer that bridges
front-end and back-end components in a single, unified interface. The Data
Source View thus provides a much richer, productivity-oriented developer
experience while making possible the implementation of consistent standards
within an Analysis Services Project. An understanding of Data Source
Views is critical to any development project in Analysis Services,
and once we get a grasp of its utility, we can appreciate that it represents an
advance in modeling, design and creation of sophisticated sources for
multi-dimensional analysis.
In this article, we will:
-
Introduce the Analysis
Services 2005 concept of Data Source Views;
-
Discuss the
nature and relationship of Data Sources and Data Source Views;
-
Introduce the Business
Intelligence Development Studio;
-
Create a new Analysis
Service Project;
-
Define a Data
Source;
-
Define a Data
Source View;
-
Introduce the Data
Source View Designer.
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