1. To SSAS or not to SSAS, that is the question Ayman El-Ghazali @TheSQLPro Senior PFE - Microsoft

2. Agenda What is Analysis Services? The many flavors of SSAS Facts, Dimensions, and Cubes Dimensional Modeling Demos

3. Microsoft’s BI Platform

4. What is Analysis Services? OLAP – Online Analytical Processing Designed for high speed query processing – Uses data compression and Memory to increase speed – Data is aggregated, which means less data to bring back – Dimensional model further increases speed Not a replacement for OLTP – Designed for reporting over OLTP, DW or DM Data – Can be a Data Mart in itself

5. The many flavors of SSAS PowerPivot – “Built-in Tabular” for Excel (2GB workbook, 4GB Memory limits) Multi-Dimensional – “Traditional SSAS” Tabular – New for SQL 2012+ (BI or Enterprise), In-Memory

6. Facts, Dimensions, and Cubes Fact – Business process or “event” – Example: $29.95 sales price of item Dimension – Attributes that are used to describe Facts – Example: Color of item sold Cubes – “Marriage” or intersection between Facts and Dimensions

7. Quarters Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 City Philadelphia Chicago NYC Washington D.C. # of Active Food Trucks 50 96 77 87 125 300 Type of Food Pizza Burgers Indian Med. Chinese Mexican Dessert 50 125 300 50 125 300 50 125 300 50 125 300 50 125 300 50 125 300 77 50 87 **Can have more than three Dimensions

8. Dimensional Modeling Relational Modeling designed for “saving space” – removing redundant data primary objective Dimensional Modeling designed for faster query speed - less joins, wider tables

9. Relational Design

10. Fact Table Dimensional Design – Star Schema

11. Fact Table Dimensional Design – Snowflake Schema

12. Demos SSAS Multi-Dimensional PowerPivot and PowerView SSAS Tabular

13. After Thoughts Watch sessions by Julie Koesmarno – I want it NOW! Data Visualization with PowerView Edwin Sarmiento – SharePoint 2013 as a BI Platform Brian Larson – Tuples, Sets, and Members: Understanding the Basics of MDX James Serra – Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture Download and use BIDS Helper

14. Q&A Ayman El-Ghazali @TheSQLPro Senior PFE - Microsoft