A Practical Guide to Microsoft® OLAP Server

With the introduction of Microsoft's OLAP Services, Online Analytical Processing
(OLAP) technology has become a major force in today's marketplace. OLAP, which
enables multidimensional databases for sophisticated decision support, is a
technology that IT and database professionals need to know. It's a core technology
of state-of-the-art customer management systems; budgeting and forecasting models;
and sales, marketing, and financial performance analysis applications. It's
also used in general-purpose "datamarts" that allow companies to monitor key
business measures and discover the strategic opportunities they need to remain
competitive in today's fast-paced e-commerce business environment.

A Practical Guide to Microsoft® OLAP Server introduces you to OLAP
technology and leads you step-by-step through the process of deploying an OLAP
server, focusing in particular on Microsoft's OLAP Services. This book explains
the basic concepts underlying OLAP, compares various OLAP products, and describes
Microsoft's OLAP Services architecture. In addition, it enumerates the development
life cycle of an OLAP Services application from planning and design through
installation and administration, discussing the goals and approaches for each
phase and task.

Essential topics covered include:

• OLTP versus OLAP
  
• Dimensions, measures, and aggregations
  
• Multipurpose query tools
  
• Dedicated desktop OLAP
  
• Microsoft OLAP Services management software
  
• Analyzing OLAP project goals, tasks, resources, and scheduling
  
• Data source analysis, including host platform accessibility and dimensionality
  
• Designing hierarchies, aggregation, storage, and partitioning
  
• Security
  
• OLAP server installation, including hardware requirements
  
• Designing and building an OLAP database
  
• OLAP and Excel
  
• OLAP and the Web
  
• Administration, training, and technical support