Professional SQL Server™ Analysis Services 2005 with MDX

11.3. Summary

In this chapter you worked with simple examples that demonstrated dimension writeback and cell writeback; specifically, how updates of cell values in cubes are executed. Many possible forms of data manipulation can be used to address the scenarios discussed in this chapter, from the most basic mathematical manipulations to weighted allocations. The changes to cells in a cube will affect the leaf level cells in the cube. Once the leaf level cells are updated, then dependent cells are updated through a cascading effect. Hence measures, calculations, and KPIs dependent on these updates are all impacted and their new values can be queried through MDX for data analysis.

You have so far learned to design dimensions and cubes, extend MDX using stored procedures, and finally to update data in dimensions in cubes. These abilities are all targeted towards data warehouse designers and developers. As with any server product, administrators are required to provide high availability of the servers and maintain a secure environment. In the next chapter you learn to perform administrative tasks on the Analysis Services instances through SSMS as well as use custom code through the management objects model Analysis Management Objects (AMO).