Introduction to

Business Intelligence

Goals
Learn about the concept of Data Warehousing. Learn about how to design and implement a Data Warehouse Dimensional database. Learn about what is a cube. Data Warehouse cube design. Learn about the SQL Server Analysis Services Architecture Learn about querying cube (MDX Language).

Why Have a Data Warehouse ?

Combine data from multiple systems and resolve inconsistencies between those systems Make reporting easier Reduce the load on transactional production systems Provide consistency among system transitions Provide for long term storage of data

Data Warehouse Process Cubes

Source Systems/OLTP

SQL Server Data Warehouse

Analysis Services

Clients

Query Tools Reporting Analysis Create OLAP Cubes

4

Design the Data Warehouse

Populate Data Warehouse

Query Data

Data Warehouse
Table vs Cube Star Schema and Snowflake Schema Fact Table and Dimension Table

Table vs Cube
A simplified example:
A typical relational table
Data are organized by rows

Make it into a cube

Data are organized by intersections

Sales table

Region dim

Product Donut Donut Milk Milk

Region East West East West

Sales $ 1 2 3 4

East

West

Total

Donut Milk
Total
Product dim

1 3 4

2 4 6

3 7 10

The basic ingredients to make a cube

Two kinds of table in a data warehouse DB 1.Fact table Marks an event, holds numerical measures to quantify the facts, how much. eg Sales Amount, Sensor Measurements. 2.Dimension tables. Facts joins dimensions, Who (Person), What (Product), When (Time), Where (Location, Region)

Star Schema
A Star Schema contains a fact table and one or more dimension tables.
1. A Fact Table: The central fact table store the numeric fact (measures) such as Sales dollars, Costs, Unit Sales etc. 2. Dimension Tables: They surround the central fact table, and they store descriptive information about the measures

The shape looks like a Star

Star schema

Snowflake Schema

A Logical Cube - Example

Product
Donut
Sandwich
The Sales$ by Soda by West in Yr of 2001

Region
North South East West 1999 2000 2001 2002
Time

Milk Soda

Beer

Dimension
All dimensions are based on tables or views in a data source view. The structure of a dimension is largely driven by the structure of the underlying dimension table or tables. The simplest structure is called a star schema, which is where each dimension is based on a single dimension table that is directly linked to the fact table by a primary key - foreign key relationship.

Dimension Consists of
A dimension consists of:

Attributes that describe the entity User-Defined Hierarchies that organize dimension members in meaningful ways
such as Store Name Store City Store State
Store Country

Attributes
Containers of dimension members Typically have one-many relationships between attributes in the same dimension:
City State, State Country, etc. All attributes implicitly related to the key

User Defined Hierarchies

User Defined Hierarchies are created from Attributes Tree-like structure
City State Country All

Provide navigation paths in a cube

Calendar Hierarchy
The Year, Quarter, and Month attributes are used to construct a hierarchy, named Calendar, in the time dim. The relationship between the levels and members of the Calendar dimension (a regular dimension) is shown in the following diagram.

Client Server Architecture

Excel OLEDB TCP ADOMD Client Apps

Analysis Server
IIS

XMLA AMO

MOSS
BIDS SSMS ADOMD .NET SSRS

HTTP

Tools to connect to Cubes

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
Query Analyzer (SSMS) To write MDX

Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) Excel 2007 Uses MDX SSAS Entity Framework (Third Party Tool)

Demo