Chapter 5. Querying Your Cube

Up until now, you have been mostly working with the development of your first cube. Now it is time to get an introduction on how you can use it in your queries.

This chapter will cover the following sections:

• Understanding multidimensionality

• Using SQL Server Management Studio to query a cube

• The anatomy of a MDX query

• Excel as a query tool

This chapter is not intended to cover the query language used in cubes called MDX to its fullest. There are entire books about just this subject. However, in this chapter you will get a primer in MDX and how to use it.

Note

The following are all good books that are worth reading for someone who wants to get a deeper knowledge of MDX:

• MDX with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services Cookbook by Tomislav Piasevoli (Aug 9, 2011)

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 MDX Step by Step by Bryan C Smith, C Ryan Clay, and Hitachi Consulting (Feb 18, 2009)

• MDX Solutions: With Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 and Hyperion Essbase by...