Introduction

This chapter contains recipes for building SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) cubes. Much like we did in Chapter 2, Defining Analysis Services Dimensions, let's start with building straightforward cubes and then work our way up to more complex requirements.

Before you delve into building cubes, you need to become familiar with terms describing the architecture of an Analysis Services cube. Each Analysis Services database may contain one or more cubes. You can build each cube based on one or multiple fact tables found in the relational data warehouse. Each measure group represents a collection of numeric metrics (or measures) found in a single fact table. However, depending on the requirements, you may have to build several measure groups based on a single fact table. Each measure group within a cube may use multiple dimensions available within the database. Not all database dimensions need to be exposed with each measure group. Each measure group can be split up into multiple...