SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 (Microsoft)

OLAP REPORT REVIEW: Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2005

Author: Nigel Pendse Released: 2006 Pages: 50 Single User Price: $795 USD An in-depth product evaluation and rating Nigel Pendse's review of Microsoft's mass market OLAP server now includes previews of Katmai (SQL Server 2008) and PerformancePoint - the financial analytical application scheduled for release in late 2007 Although more than two years later to market than Microsoft had originally announced, SQL Server & Analysis Services 2005 have represented a significant advance on the previous releases in many areas. For example, data access capabilities, including from relational sources, have improved greatly. This review evaluates the extended scope of Analysis Services including: Its close integration with SQL Server 2005 Improved security features Extended time-series intelligence. It also explores the implications of the replacement of Data Transformation Services by Integration Services, and explains other new features including the move of MDX calculations from the client to the server and the resulting scalability characteristics. Although Analysis Services offers a greater scalability and new features, the review warns that it is now a much more technical product than its predecessor making the product more suitable for professional developers, rather than end users. Among high-scoring features, the review describes its database structural flexibility, security and multi-user capabilities. There is also an assessment of its relatively low scoring performance in respect of its portability support and exception alerting. Despite the market leading position of this product, beware of problems with patchy local support provided by Microsoft for multidimensional technology. A sample of the numerous specially generated screenshots from this review. Click to enlarge.

Contents: Vendor overview Microsoft, ProClarity & PerformancePoint Microsoft's OLAP origins Product commercial issues Pricing Market share Katmai (SQL Server 2008) preview Database structure and capacity Data write-back Architecture and platforms Data access functionality Calculation functionality Aggregations KPIs Reporting flexibility Cube Analysis Excel add-in Automatic detection of exceptions and data mining Time series intelligence Currency support Security and DBMS issues End-user human factors Application building features Performance Conclusions and scores Ask a question about this product? Other customers also purchased: OLAP and spreadsheets Review ProClarity 6.0 Review Panorama NovaView Review Email a colleague about this product

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