United States Change | All Microsoft Sites
Microsoft Home | Servers and Tools
SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS) provides a unified and integrated view of all your business data as the foundation for all of your traditional reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP) analysis, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scorecards, and data mining.
Analysis Services provides a business semantic model, referred to as the Unified Dimensional Model (UDM), that defines business entities, business logic, calculations, and metrics. The UDM is a central place that serves as the single version of truth for all reports, spreadsheets, OLAP browsers, KPIs, and analytical applications.
Using the powerful new data source view feature, the UDM is mapped to a host of heterogeneous back-end data sources, providing a complete and integrated picture of the business regardless of the location of the data. With friendly descriptions of the business entities, navigation hierarchies, multiple perspectives, and even automatic translations to native languages, users will find it easy to explore corporate business data.
Proactive caching enables the combination of real-time updates with multidimensional online analytical processing (MOLAP) class performance. Analysis Services maintains a highly compressed and optimized data cache that is maintained automatically as the data in the underlying source databases changes. The cache provides superb query performance and isolates back-end source systems from the load of the analytical queries.
The KPI framework provides a rich centralized repository defining key metrics and scorecards. With the KPI framework in Analysis Services, you can easily build balanced scorecards and other types of business performance management applications.
Translations. Translations provide a simple and centrally managed mechanism for storing and presenting analytic data to users in their preferred languages.
MDX Scripts. Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) scripts are the new mechanism for defining calculated members, named sets, and cell calculations.
Business Intelligence Wizards. A set of easy-to-use wizards can help even the most novice user model some of the more complex business intelligence problems.
Semiadditive Measures. This new measure aggregation type for advanced data modeling includes last-nonempty, last-child, first-child, average-of-children, and even by-account-type.
Data Mining. Analysis Services provides tools for data mining with which you can identify rules and patterns in your data, so that you can determine why things happen and predict what will happen in the future—giving you powerful insight that will help your company make better business decisions.
XML for Analysis (XML/A) is the native, standards-based protocol for communication with an Analysis Services server. New kinds of applications are now possible and easy to develop—applications that integrate analytics with operations in real time and that can access data from any platform and any language.
SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services sets a new standard for business intelligence servers in enterprise scalability, manageability, and productivity.
Scalability. Analysis Services scales to the most demanding analytical and reporting applications. With a new dimensional architecture, UDM-enabled applications let users quickly perform rich and intuitive ad-hoc analysis using hundreds of dimensions and hierarchies. Hierarchies make it easier for users to navigate and query UDMs with hundreds of millions of members.In addition, the new architecture removes the limitations of memory–resident dimensions and the number of children members per parent. With an XML⁄A–based communication protocol that is paired with greatly optimized role–based security, Analysis Services helps a UDM handle thousands of users, enabling enterprise-scale business intelligence applications using Web⁄middle-tier or client-server architectures.
Manageability. Because the management tools for the relational engine and Analysis Services are integrated, business intelligence administrators benefit from having a single, uniform environment for managing SQL Server Analysis Services. With SQL Server Management Studio, administrators can easily script Analysis Services objects and operations or tasks. Administrators can use a rich editor for MDX and Data Mining eXtensions (DMX) queries. SQL Profiler can be used to trace, capture, and replay Analysis Services queries and other commands. Multi-instancing, enhanced backup and restore, synchronization of databases across servers, and improved fine-grained administrative permissions are some of the new manageability tools.
Productivity. Integrated with Visual Studio, the intuitive Analysis Services wizards and editors provide a true application development environment, supporting the project's full life cycle. Source control, versioning, workstation isolation, embedded debugging, and configuration management are some of the benefits of the new Business Intelligence Development Studio.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2) is now available. This is a very exciting release for Analysis Services users as it has been designed around optimization of performance and scale, as well as Microsoft Office System 2007 interoperability. This release enhances existing functionality in addition to offering a wealth of new capabilities.
SQL Server 2005 SP2 offers a wealth of new enhancements that will greatly impact organizations’ ability to deliver business insight where users want it. Read this white paper to learn about the new features available in SQL Server 2005 SP2 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System. These features offer optimized interoperability, enabling organizations to deliver powerful yet affordable business insight to every information worker.
With the release of SQL Server 2005 SP2 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System, data mining just became a lot easier. The new SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins enable organizations to make predictive analysis accessible to a much wider audience by empowering end users to harness the highly sophisticated data mining algorithms of SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services within the familiar environment of Office.
Instant access to accurate information, enabling end users to get answers to even the most complex questions at the speed of thought is the premise of Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). The goal of continuously excelling in providing even faster query times and data refresh rates is foremost during the development process of any SQL Server Analysis Services release, including the release of SP2. This white paper describes how application developers can apply performance-tuning techniques to their SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services online analytical processing (OLAP) solutions, helping them enhance query performance, tune processing time and server resources, as well as optimize special design scenarios.
View this brief introduction to SQL Server Analysis Services cubes and see how Adventure Works compares sales data utilizing a SQL Server Analysis Services cube.
SQL Server Analysis Services provides tools to quickly create and deploy graphical KPI's based on enterprise data intelligence data. Watch how Adventure Works uses SSAS to create the calculations necessary to track their business using graphical KPI's.
See how Adventure Works reduced the lag time to get reports to their business teams by implementing Report Explorer and Report Viewer through SQL Server Reporting Services to connect to real time data. This connectivity provides a robust reporting interface to your business intelligence.
Microsoft delivers full range of personal, team and organizational BI tools, tightly integrated, with a focus on making the right decisions to drive a business forward.
Windows in Financial Services announced 2007 Innovator Award winners at SIFMA, which included an award to a fixed income sales and analytics application designed by Lehman Brothers.
Read more about the fundamentals of Analysis Services optimization.
SQL Server magazine provides in-depth articles and forums about Analysis Services.
Analysis Services
