Chapter 7. Data Mining – Descriptive Models in SSAS

So far, you've learned about three main components of a BI system, namely data visualization, consolidation, and modeling. There is another important component in a BI system: data mining. Data mining can be performed in two ways; analysis of the existing data and predictions based on a model fetched from an existing dataset. The concept of analyzing an existing dataset is called the descriptive model. In this chapter, we will discuss the descriptive model. The very next chapter is about prediction with data mining.

Microsoft uses Analysis Services as an engine for data mining models. Each Analysis Services database can contain one or more data mining models. The result of data mining models can be checked with a wide set of diagrams. In this chapter, you will learn about the data mining cycle, data preparation, and descriptive mining models such as the association rule. You will also learn how to solve real-world problems with descriptive...