Simon Lidberg - Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development

Simon Lidberg is a database veteran, who has worked in the Computer industry since the mid nineties. He has had roles as Consultant, Support Engineer, Escalation Engineer, and Technical Presales Specialist. In the past 15 years, he has worked with databases and ERP Systems at companies such as Digital Equipment, Compaq, and Microsoft.

He has been an expert in Microsoft SQL Server since he started to work with Version 6.5 at Microsoft as a Support Engineer. Since 2006, he has worked with the Microsoft Business Intelligence stack that includes Analysis Services.

Since then, he has helped numerous companies to start using Analysis Services as well as have trained hundreds of people on Microsoft BI.

Simon is also a frequent speaker at conferences such as PASS SQLRally and Microsoft TechDays. He currently blogs at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/querysimon

I wish to thank the people at Packt Publishing who gave me the opportunity to write this book. I have tried to write the book that I felt was missing when I moved into the Business Intelligence space, after having worked with databases for 10 years. I hope that you, as a reader, will find it beneficial and that it will help you know Analysis Services.

I also want to thank the people who have helped me while writing this book, Mikael, Stephen, and all the rest; thanks for your help and inspiration.

Most of all, I wish to thank my wife, Marita, for the support during the work with the book.

David Loo is a Senior Software Development Professional with over 25 years of experience in both software development and people management. He is respected for his ability to focus teams on service excellence and for designing and implementing practical process improvements. Always on the lookout for ways to contribute his knowledge and experience of software development, team-building, and development best practices.

Richard Louie is a Business Intelligence developer at Redwood Trust, a residential and commercial mortgage investment firm. He has extensive experience in Oracle and Microsoft SQL for ETL, SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, and VB.NET. Richard is ASQ Green Belt Certified. He is a graduate in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine.

Donabel Santos is a SQL Server MVP and is the Senior SQL Server Developer/DBA/Trainer at QueryWorks Solutions, a consulting and training company in Vancouver, BC. She has worked with SQL Server since Version 2000 in numerous development, tuning, reporting, and integration projects with ERPs, CRMs, SharePoint, and other custom applications. She holds MCITP certifications for SQL Server 2005/2008, and an MCTS for SharePoint. She is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), and is also the lead instructor for SQL Server Administration, Development, Tableau, and SSIS courses at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). Donabel is a proud member of PASS (Professional Association of SQL Server), and a proud BCIT alumna (CST diploma and degree).

Donabel blogs at www.sqlmusings.com and her twitter handle is @sqlbelle. She speaks and presents at SQLSaturday, VANPASS, Vancouver TechFest, and so on. She writes for Packt, Idera, SSWUG, and so on. She is the author of Packt's SQL Server 2012 with PowerShell V3 Cookbook, and a contributing author of Manning's PowerShell Deep Dives.

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Preface

Most books about Analysis Services are targeted at people who already work in the BI space and want to become experts. I wanted to write a book that could be read and understood by a novice who wants to become a BI developer. I have made this journey myself; I had worked with database solutions for more than 10 years when I started to work with BI solutions. I had a hard time finding a book that would cover the introduction to multidimensional modeling.

The intent of this book is not to be a complete book on Analysis Services development, but to serve as an introduction that will allow the user to get started. The book also contains links to where a reader can find more in-depth material on the topics covered. This will allow the user to start as a novice and to move into the role of an intermediate Analysis Services developer.