Cubes have other benefits as well, including the ability to perform
complex queries that contain a variety of dimensions, also known as multidimensional
queries. Cubes can also contain other features such as:
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which will be discussed in detail in
Chapter 4
Perspectives, a feature which helps narrow the scope of the cube for particular
users
Translations, so that a single cube can support multiple languages
Actions, one feature of which allows a cube to tie to external programs or
web sites
Mining models, which support a wide variety of data mining techniques
Cubes are clearly very powerful tools for performing analysis and for quickly
responding to user queries. Designing and building the cube is therefore critical to
the success of the overall project. Building the cube takes a number of steps and
requires a number of decisions to be made. An overview of the process is described
in the following section.
Steps to Cube Design
Designing a cube for Analysis Services 2005 is done using Business Intelligence
Development Studio, often called BI Dev Studio or just BIDS. BIDS is actually
C h a p t e r 3 : D a t a W a r e h o u s i n g a n d B u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e 49
Visual Studio 2005 with project templates that support BI objects such as Analysis
Services projects (cubes, mining models, and so forth), Reporting Services projects,
and more. If a customer doesn??™t have Visual Studio, the installation of the SQL
Server client tools installs BIDS, which is Visual Studio 2005 with just those project
templates.
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