Rating: 
Summary: Good for beginners. Doesn't go into depth.
Review: This is a good book that will help you get started on Microsoft's SQL Server Analysis Services.
You'll get to learn how to build a Cube, build a Dimension and the different types of Measures.
You'll learn how to determine the type of dimensions you have.
You'll learn how to do some basic tricks.But you won't learn any of the advanced topics that I was hoping for.
This book doesn't go into any details about how historical data is handled.
How to do some basic MDX programming.
How to make custom incremental cube processing.
etc. This is a beginner's book, as the title suggests, that will take you from clueless to comfortable in Analysis Services in a short period of time. That's why I gave it 4 stars. This book in no way substitutes a good book on OLAP and/or data warehousing (such as Kimbal's books).
Rating: 
Summary: AWESOME OLAP BOOK
Review: This is a great OLAP book for SQL SERVER 2000 Analysis Services. It covers ROLAP, MOLAP, and HOLAP. The book is filled with pictures and easy to understand examples to help you learn SQL Server 2000 OLAP features. It is great for people with no OLAP knowledge who want to learn about OLAP and SQL Server 2000 OLAP potential. In addition, this book is great for experienced OLAP developers who want to learn new features of SQL SERVER 2000 Analysis Services. The best book to learn OLAP for SQL SERVER 2000 and to get up to speed with the new OLAP feautures in SQL SERVER 2000.
Rating:
Summary: Good for getting started with Analysis Services
Review: This Step by Step guide serves as a great starting point for getting familiar with Microsoft's Analysis services. It starts with a quick introduction to data warehousing (without resorting to giving an entire history of the subject, as seems so common today) and how it relates to OLAP and then moves right into the Analysis Servies tools. The chapters are well written and get you the information you need, without missing any major details. Even if you don't plan to take the "step by step" approach, this book is worth having by your side. All right... now for the downsides. At best this book is good for beginners. These are some of the areas where I found it came up short: - Sizing systems that will support Analysis Services. The book talks a bit about how big cubes are, but there is no information about cube performance/cube sizing, etc. Basically, this book won't help you develop a hardware plan for hosting Analysis Services. - Accessing Analysis Services via the web. All of Microsoft's literature talks about how SQL Server 2000's great support for the web/XML. Strangely, it is very hard to find this information for Analysis Services, and this book doesn't provide any guidance. Right now it seems that the best you can do to find this information is hunt around Microsoft's site. Overall I still think this is good book. However, if you are going to be building a large Analysis Services system, expect to be looking for other sources to answer all of your questions.
Rating:
Summary: Training, Most Excellent...Dude
Review: You would probably pay thousands of dollars for the level of training that Jacobson's book on Analysis Services provides. Even though this is an introductory book, it is aimed squarely at IT and database professionals.
In this well thought out and perfectly executed training guide, Jacobson does three things: a) he reviews in concise fashion the various OLAP and administrative operations provided by Analysis Services, b) more importantly, he explains to you why you would be interested in them, and c) most important, he shows you in exquisite detail how to perform the operations.
I was very impressed by the fact that the hands-on instructions are very clear and that the all the samples worked perfectly. After you finish Jacobson's book, you come away knowing the basics of OLAP and you will be comfortable performing basic tasks in the Analysis Services product. You will have a very thorough grounding in Analysis Services so that you can probe deeper into the more advanced topics of Analysis Services. The coverage in this book is broad and so doesn't go into great depth in some areas, such as MDX. However, Jacobson does go into some depth in the administrative areas of Cube optimization and Cube security.
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