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Summary: Setting up,managing,& getting the most out of MS OLAP Server
Review: OLAP enables users to create, change, and access information from multidimensional data warehouses almost instantaneously. Microsoft has harnessed the power of OLAP in two of its most popular products - SQL Server 7 for data warehousing and OLAP server for data mining using SQL Server 7 and other popular databases. This guide to mastering Microsoft OLAP server begins with a practical introduction to OLAP server concepts and architecture. It then progresses by logical, skill-building steps through a range of crucial topics in maintenance, database optimization, and advanced database design. The author includes in-depth case studies, illustrating how to build OLAP applications, as well as instructions on how to construct working OLAP applications, including a customer-response tracking program and a financial analysis program. Topics covered in detail include: *The storage and operational architecture of Microsoft OLAP server
*Using the MDX language with Microsoft OLAP server
*Using Microsoft OLAP server to access and update data
*Specifying calculations
*Optimizing server performance
*Securing the Server On the CD-ROM you'll find all the sample applications and databases described in the book, as well as additional software for working with Microsoft OLAP server. ERIK THOMSEN is Chief Scientist of the DSS Lab where he works on the design and implementation of integrated DSS systems. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, writes the "Decision Support" column for Intelligent Enterprise, and performs independent research in the areas of multidimensional logic and visualization. GEORGE SPOFFORD is Chief Architect of the DSS Lab, where he is a consultant and software engineer specializing in design, implementation, and evaluation of OLAP-based DSS systems and related tools. DICK CHASE is a Senior Consultant for Decision Support Technology (a part of the Condor Technology Solutions family) and has developed numerous decision support solutions for clients in such industries as retail, healthcare, insurance and financial services.
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Summary: Excellent insight to OLAP in general and the product MS OLAP
Review: As some one who makes a living doing OLAP development, I thought the Author does a good job explaining OLAP as well as the product. I might still recommend another book on OLAP specifically, but this alone is a good start.
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Summary: Great reference- the olapmessageboard highly recommends this
Review: As some one who makes a living doing OLAP development, I thought the Author does a great job explaining the product and OLAP in general.
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Summary: Worst book on OLAP
Review: Don't buy this book. Please, read the first chapter and then figure out why it would be a waste of time and money to invest in this book. The tool is great; just don't follow this book. I say read the documentation that comes with the tool. If you really want to learn OLAP, get the OLAP solutions book by Mr. Eric. GREAT BOOK! Save yourself time; money is secondary.
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Summary: I think it is best book in the market on MS OLAP Services
Review: For now just this book contains so much information about Microsoft OLAP Services in one place. I am sure that if you want to use MS OLAP Services, you must have this book in your library.
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Summary: Solid Intro and Reference
Review: Having looked at the three books out right now, this one definitely provides the most in the way of OLAP designer and DBA information. It has a ton of MDX information, including a clear introduction and a lot of illustrated examples (more full queries and fewer snippets might have been better), and has a chapter on actually using MDX to solve a lot of different types of query and calculation needs. The authors take the time to describe a lot of otherwise undocumented behavior- for example how NULLs really get dealt with (as opposed to how the OLE DB spec says). It's also focused entirely on the OLAP side- other technologies like DTS are found in other sources, but I'll admit that I'd rather have more books that cover their topics deeply than fewer books that cover everything shallowly. This book is definitely geared towards someone who already understands OLAP- I would have foundered on the OLAP generalities, except the authors state up-front that Erik Thomsen's "OLAP Solutions" is how they prefer to introduce OLAP, so I used that as well. (Not a bad choice, either!) When I was developing my first MS OLAP cubes, I found the Maintaining Applications chapter handy for planning their later life, but I wish that changing warehouse dimensions were dealt with. I also found myself wanting more programming examples, but at 500 pages plus CD-ROM there's a lot already in here. In short, a total focus on the OLAP, a clear description of how to do what you can do and work around what is hard, and the best MDX guide I've seen. Not utterly perfect, but still great!
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Summary: Great Book
Review: I attended the Microsoft Official Curriculum for DW using SQL 7 and this book provides much more information about creating and using Datawarehouses. The book provides ample coverage of MDX, something the OLAP docs and the class were lacking in. It also provides good coverage for creating external functions and provides informative information about the different storage and design mechanism for DWs. Just took the DW beta exam and this book did a decent job of preparing me for the exam. Still need real world experience creating DW though.
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Summary: Complicated and full of errors
Review: I bought this book hoping that it would be the reference to use for Microsoft OLAP after reading the author's great book "OLAP Solutions". However, I was deeply disppointed to see that this book is no way near the previous book. The book goes into deep confusing, sometimes inaccurate discussions with little organization of the content. The book does give the impression that it was written in a hurry. The most appealing sections to me when I reviewed it at the book store (which made me buy it) were the case studies repesented in it. However, these case studies are a work of immagination because they simply don't work and are full of errors. Another area that was disappointing to me was the MDX discussion. Again, the discussion starts with an introduction that really only serves to confuse you more. The next 2 apters go into more depth discussing functions in MDX besides other things. However, you will be better off reading the product document (although very terrible) because of the errors in the examples, and because most examples are just code snippets with no full queries. It is also so disappointing that a Microsoft OLAP reference such as this book does not handle DTS. While the book does into deep discussions about database design and dimensional data modeling, it does not discuss how the data is transferred from the relational structures to the multidimensional structures.
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Summary: Microsoft Olap Solutions
Review: I bought this book with the intent to use it as a reference tool to understand Microsoft OLAP toolkit. This book does extend and add to the available documentation that comes with the product. I found the content extremely hard to follow for a layman in the OLAP environment. I have had a number of years experience building star schema data warehouses but still had a hard time grasping the CUBE concept without reading a number of times. I also was hoping for some more information about building client applications to access the cubes. Expecially how to use Excell or other OLAP tools to process cube data via the Internet. In trying to follow the tutorials I was amazed at the number of errors. This made it extremely difficult to follow. I only bought this book because it was the only one available at the time, possibly rushing it to the printer was not a good thing.
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Summary: Decent intro, bad tutorials
Review: I found the book very helpful for exploring MS OLAP, but I found the Health Care Benefits tutorial pathetic. It was riddled with errors and very poorly written. MANY stupid errors that should have never gone to print. The second tutorial was much better, but if you get the book for the examples (like I did), BEWARE! Only half has any value.
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