{"id":4763,"date":"2010-11-12T09:17:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T17:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/dataplatforminsider\/2010\/11\/12\/updated-analysis-services-roadmap-for-sql-server-code-name-denali-and-beyond\/"},"modified":"2024-01-22T22:50:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:50:08","slug":"updated-analysis-services-roadmap-for-sql-server-code-name-denali-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/sql-server\/blog\/2010\/11\/12\/updated-analysis-services-roadmap-for-sql-server-code-name-denali-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Updated: Analysis Services \u2013 Roadmap for SQL Server Code Name \u201cDenali\u201d and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the TechEd North America 2011 conference in Atlanta this week, the SQL Server team is providing details on the SQL Server \u201cDenali\u201d release, including the upcoming public availability of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) this summer.\u00a0 As part of these announcements, we are providing an update on the SQL Server Analysis Services roadmap that was disclosed during the PASS 2010 conference last November (detailed here<\/a>).\u00a0 In the past six months, we have been talking to many people in the Microsoft BI community \u2013 customers, partners, developers, and MVPs \u2013 to get feedback on the roadmap.\u00a0 We are seeing lots of excitement about the breakthrough innovations coming in SQL Server \u201cDenali\u201d and the new class of BI applications that it will enable.\u00a0 At the same time, we have learned that we need to be clearer about how customers can carry forward their existing BI applications and benefit from these innovations.\u00a0 Based on this feedback from the community, we\u2019ve made a couple of adjustments and clarifications to the roadmap and vision, outlined below.<\/p>\n

Analysis Services is an industry leading BI platform and the most popular OLAP engine in the market (see Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms<\/a>).\u00a0 It has a large ecosystem of developers, partners, BI tools, and solutions, and it has broad adoption from small businesses to large enterprises.\u00a0 It is the foundation of the Microsoft BI stack, serving as the semantic model for Microsoft BI tools including Excel, SharePoint Insights and Reporting Services.\u00a0 Our vision is to build on the strengths and success of Analysis Services, expand its reach to a much broader community, and enable the next generation of BI applications.\u00a0 We will do this by embracing the relational data model and bringing it together with the multidimensional model under a single unified BI platform \u2013 providing the best of both worlds.\u00a0 Analysis Services, by virtue of its OLAP roots, has tremendous strengths in multidimensional modeling which is capable of tackling the most advanced of BI applications.\u00a0 On the other hand, the relational data model is widely understood and accepted by developers and IT professionals around the world.\u00a0 By bringing the two data models together, we will provide a powerful yet flexible platform that can tackle the diverse needs of BI applications \u2013 needs such as advanced analytics, sophisticated business logic, professional developer tools, choice of end user tools, performance, scalability, ease of use, and time to solution.\u00a0 The Business Intelligence Semantic Model<\/b> is being introduced in Analysis Services for SQL Server \u201cDenali\u201d with the goal to fulfill this vision.<\/p>\n

The BI Semantic Model is one model for all end user experiences<\/span> \u2013 reporting, analytics, scorecards, dashboards, and custom applications.\u00a0 All client tools in the Microsoft BI stack \u2013 Excel, PowerPivot, SharePoint Insights and Reporting Services (including Crescent) \u2013 operate on this model. BI professionals can create the model in Visual Studio and deploy it to an Analysis Services server.\u00a0 Interestingly, the model can also be created by business users with PowerPivot for Excel and shared via PowerPivot for SharePoint.\u00a0 PowerPivot and Analysis Services are two different products; one targets business users and the other targets BI professionals and IT.\u00a0 However both use the BI Semantic Model under the covers.\u00a0 In the case of PowerPivot, the model is embedded inside an Excel workbook.\u00a0 In the case of Analysis Services, the model is stored and managed on the server.\u00a0 Having the same model behind these experiences enables seamless transition of BI applications from Personal BI to Team BI to Organizational\/Professional BI.\u00a0 For example, a PowerPivot workbook built by a business user can be used as a starting point by a BI professional building an Analysis Services application. The SQL Server professional tools (Management Studio and BI Development Studio) make it very simple to import a PowerPivot workbook into Analysis Services.<\/p>\n

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Before we get into the details of the BI Semantic Model, let me first address an important question: What about existing Analysis Services cubes (also known as Unified Dimensional Model or UDM)?\u00a0 The answer is very simple:\u00a0 when you upgrade your Analysis Services project or server to SQL Server \u201cDenali\u201d, every cube automatically becomes a BI Semantic Model. The BI Semantic Model is an evolution of the UDM from a pure multidimensional model into a hybrid model that offers all of the capabilities of the UDM and more. As such, the term Unified Dimensional Model is no longer used with SQL Server \u201cDenali\u201d and is subsumed by the BI Semantic Model. This is a key difference in the roadmap from what was disclosed last November at PASS 2010.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s get into the details of the BI Semantic Model \u2013 how to build a model and the technology that powers the model. The BI Semantic Model can be viewed conceptually as a three-layer model:<\/p>\n