SQL Server 2005 –
Major New Features
1-800-COURSES
www.globalknowledge.com
Expert Reference Series of White Papers
SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS)
Microsoft Analysis Services is server-based platform for on-line analytical processing (OLAP) and Data Mining
Services provided with Microsoft SQL Server 2005.
This tool is not new, but it has been completely rewritten from the ground up. While Analysis Services 2000 was
more of an evolutionary release building on the same OLAP architecture that Microsoft (MS) introduced with
SQL 7,
the new version of SSAS is a fundamental change, built on Unified Dimensional Model (UDM).
Microsoft
released SSAS in November 2005, and it ships as an add-on to SQL Server 2005 just like its predecessors.
Business Intelligence – The Big Picture
SSAS is an integral part of the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) platform that w
as initiated in early 2004.
Business Intelligence is a general term describing innovative use of technology for processing large volumes of
corporate data and turning it into useful information that facilitates decision-making. While BI is not a new con-
cept, the underlying technology made actual implementations prohibitively expensive and available mostly to the
upper echelon of management. The goal of SSAS 2005 is to ”democratize” the process and to provide instant
information readily available to the entire organization – or what MS calls “pervasive business intelligence” (PBI).
The MS BI Platform is a multi-product offering that includes SSAS and other components. The two major build-
ing blocks of Microsoft BI Platform are SQL Server and Office System. The back-end analytics engine provided
by SQL Server is supplemented with the user interface provided by Office System. Furthermore, the Microsoft
BI Platform integrates with different enterprise data stores. This allows for a single interface that draws raw
data from multiple data sources, without requiring modifications to existing applications. A typical BI imple-
mentation is depicted in
Figure 1 on the next page.
Scope of this Paper
A white paper on SSAS 2005 could easily become a book.

The new
Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) is single suite of development and mainte-
nance tools that replaces SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager
,
Analysis Services Manager, and Query Analyzer.
It allows a DBA or a SQL developer to define a cube or a mining model.
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Page 4
Component SQL Server 2000 SQL Server 2005
Extract, transformation, and load Data Transformation Services (DTS) SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
Relational data warehouse SQL Server 2000 relational database SQL Server 2005 relational database
Multidimensional database SQL Server 2000
Analysis Services
SQL Server 2005
Analysis Services
Data mining SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
Managed reporting SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
Ad hoc reporting Not applicable SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
Ad hoc query and analysis Microsoft Office products (Excel, Office
Web Components, Data Analyzer,
SharePoint Portal Server)
Microsoft Office products (Excel, Office
Web Components, Data Analyzer,
SharePoint Portal Server)
Database development tools SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager,
Analysis Manager, Query Analyzer, vari-
ous other tools
SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence
Development Studio (New)