Looking Back What SQL Server Analysis Services Has Achieved so Far
By : Kasim Wirama, MCDBA, MCITP
Current SQL Server now is SQL Server 2008. Speaking about business intelligence specifically by looking back to 8 years when Microsoft BI began to climb BI leader quadrant, there are a lot of things to achieve. Let’s visit achievements by analysis service on SQL 2000, SQL 2005 and SQL 2008.
Analysis services in SQL Server 2000 is enterprise complete OLAP. It comes with complete solution sample; I remember the popular sample is called FoodMart. Where in the sample, I find features of analysis service implementation such as linked dimension, calculated measure, etc. At the time, data mining came into analysis service. At the version, analysis service made integration with office XP by pivot table excel support and office web components. I remember that a year before SQL Server 2005 is released, Microsoft released reporting services 2000 as add-on to SQL Server 2000. Reporting Services in later SQL Server release become key component in integration with Analysis services and Integration Services in SQL Server 2005.
Analysis services in SQL Server 2005 is breakthrough with different architecture from SQL Server 2000 with aim to achieve scalability and enterprise-ready features, such as Integration with Management Studio, multi instance, Data Source View, Multiple Fact table, MDX debugger, Proactive Caching, Analysis Management Object (AMO), Profiler Integration, XML/A, Perspective, Translation, Many to many dimension, Fine grain security roles, KPI, role playing dimension, many more. Data mining becomes first class citizen at the release. Deeper integration with numerous Microsoft products happens at the version such as with Excel 2007, SharePoint 2007, Balance Scorecard Manager 2006, Reporting Services 2005 and Performance Point Server 2007.
Analysis service in SQL Server 2008 refocus on customer request in area of scalability and performance, enterprise manageability and rich data-exploration features thru MDX and data mining enhancement. Some features to address scalability and performance aspect is attribute relationship designer, usage based optimization designer, AMO design warning, resource monitoring and optimization for block computation and many more.
Just curious what features will be added for Analysis Service in next version of SQL Server. J