Building your first Analysis Services Tabular BI Semantic model with SQL Server 2012
1. BUILDING YOUR FIRST ANALYSIS SERVICES
TABULAR BI SEMANTIC MODEL WITH SQL
SERVER 2012
Frederik Vandeputte
Partner @Kohera
President @SQLUG.BE
frederik.vandeputte@kohera.be
3. ANALYSIS SERVICES: TODAY
Broad adoption
“Customers in the Magic Quadrant survey report that their Microsoft
average deployment sizes are now larger than any other vendor in
the survey in terms of users.”
“Use of OLAP functionality by Microsoft customers is more than
double that for the rest of the survey respondents.”
Source: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms, 2011
Large ecosystem
"Wide availability of skills is among the top reasons customers select Microsoft over competing vendors.”
Source: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms, 2011
Highest rated infrastructure and development tools
“Microsoft customers rate its BI platform infrastructure and development tools among the highest
compared to other vendors, and a higher percentage of customers use them extensively.”
Source: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms, 2011
3
4. ANALYSIS SERVICES: TOMORROW
Build on the strengths
Embrace the relational
and success of Analysis
data model – well
Services and expand its
understood by
reach to a much
developers and IT Pros
broader user base
Bring together the
relational and Provide flexibility in the
multidimensional platform to suit the
models under a single diverse needs of BI
unified BI platform – applications
best of both worlds!
5. BI SEMANTIC MODEL
One Model for all End User Experiences
Client Tools
Analytics, Reports, Scorecards,
Dashboards, Custom Apps
BI Semantic Model
Data model
Business logic Personal BI Team BI Organizational BI
and queries PowerPivot for Excel PowerPivot for SharePoint Analysis Services
Data access
Data Sources
Databases, LOB Applications, OData Feeds,
Spreadsheets, Text Files
7. SO WHAT’S ANALYSIS SERVICES TABULAR ANYWAY
• “Server Side version of PowerPivot v1”
• Development in Visual Studio, not in Excel
• Adding PowerPivot v2 features
• Adding Enterprise features like
• security
• partitions
• management
• ...
8. WHAT’S NEW COMPARED TO POWERPIVOT V1
• Richer Models
• KPIs
• Descriptions
• Persisted formatting
• Advanced sorting
• Mark as Date Table
• Distinct count
• Drill-through
• Perspectives
• Hierarchies
• Multiple relationships
• Parent child
10. ABOUT THE DEMO
• Built a first SSAS Tabular model from scratch
• Enhance the model step by step
• Compare and highlight differences with PowerPivot and
SSAS Multidimensioal (OLAP)
12. THE WORKSPACE DATABASE
• Can be local or remote server
• Holds in memory “development copy” of model
• Databasename = ProjectName + username + GUID
• Analyze in Excel connects to workspace DB
• No need to redeploy to see changes in Excel or Cube browser
13. MEASURES MUST BE EXPLICITELY CREATED
• PowerPivot will create implicit measures when you drag a column
to the values area in a pivot table
• Not possible in BISM (No_ measure defined)
• Like in SSAS OLAP – measures must be created explicitely
• Eeasiest way: AutoSum in SQL Data Tools
14. HIDE COLUMNS FROM CLIENT TOOLS
• Make your model user friendly
• Hide (surrogate) key columns
• Hide columns used in formulas
• Hide SalesAmount
• Sum of Sales Amount visible
15. DAX DATA ANALYSIS EXPRESSION
• DAX = Data Analysis Expressions
• Launched with PowerPivot
• DAX goals
• Make data analysis really easy
• Used relationships defined in PowerPivot/BISM model (no need for VLOOLUP)
• Excel like Syntax
• Support for +/- 80 Excel function
• 35 Built in Time Intelligence functions
• + Additional functions
16. WHAT CAN WE DO WITH DAX
• Create caclulated columns
• Create calculated measures
• Define security in the model
• Query the BI Semantic Model
• out of scope of this presentation
• Power View uses DAX as a query language
17. CALCULATED COLUMNS
• Just another column in a table
• Similar to named calculations in SSAS OLAP Datasource views
• Calculated after data has been loaded (cube processing)
• Can be placed in colums, rows, filters and slicers
• Evaluated in row context
• Examples
• [Amount] =[Qty] *[Price]
• [Full Name] = [First Name] & “ “ & [Last Name]
18. CALUCATED MEASURES
• Created in the measure grid
• Calculated “on the fly”
• Can only be placed in values area of PivotTables
• Evaluated in filter context
• Rows/Columns/filters/Slicers
• Examples
• [Sales] = SUM (Sales[Amount])
• [Average Sale] = AVERAGEX ( Sales, Sales[Amount])
19. DATE CALCULATIONS
• TOTALYTD function
• Calculated Year To Date Values
• SalesAmtYTD:=TOTALYTD(SUM(AutoSales[SalesAmount]);Dates[Date])
WRONG RESULTS
20. CREATE A DATE DIMENSION
• Mark Time Dimension Table as Date
• Use data column from Time dimension in Calculations
• Sort Columns By key column
• Create Hierarchies (in Diagram view)
CORRECT RESULTS
27. MANAGEBILITY OF YOUR BISM CUBES
• Via SSMS
• Backup/Restore
• Script
• Deploy
• Partition and security Managements
• SSIS
• Analysis Services Processing Task
• AMO/ADOMD/PowerShell
• Other tools
• Deplyoment wizard, msbuild, source control, ..
28. CONCLUSIONS
• Tabular model vs traditional SSAS OLAP cubes
• Easier learing curve
• No MDX, but DAX
• Not all SSAS OLAP features are available in BISM tabular
o SCOPE statements
o Write Back
o Native support for many to many dimensions
o ...
• Personal BI -> Team BI – Corporate BI
• PowerPivot for Excel PowerPivot for Sharepoint BISM
• Watch Kasper’s session tonight on Power View
PowerPivot is new, self-service BI, relationship with AnalysisMature product, been out there since SQL 7.0, 5 major releases, Denali will be the Leading OLAP server, rich ecosystem of partners and ISVsUnprecedented scale, going beyond the traditional scope of BI applications
Where do we want to take this product. Multi-release, multi-year vision for the productSometimes you want fast time to solution, sometimes you want complex calculations and huge scaleBISM is the name we give to Analysis Services that encompasses these goals
Carry forward the existing ecosystem of client applicationsLook a bit deeper into the conceptual architectureCall out PowerPivot as a clientMDX versus DAXData access: cache the data or pass it through Vertipaq new in-memorycolunmstore, compression, blazing fast perf. No aggregations or tuning. Same as PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint.