560 attributed reviews in the last 3 years
Refreshingly small course sizes
Outstandingly good courseware
Whizzy online classrooms
Wise Owls only (no freelancers)
Almost no cancellations
We have genuine integrity
We invoice after training
Review 30+ years of Wise Owl
View our top 100 clients
Search our website
We also send out useful tips in a monthly email newsletter ...
Should you use tabular or multi-dimensional SSAS mode? Here's the answer! Part five of a seven-part series of blogs |
---|
If you're building a data warehouse, you'll want to know whether you should be creating cubes using the legacy multi-dimensional Analysis Services server mode, or creating data models in the new tabular mode. This blog gives Wise Owl's take on the subject.
This blog is part of our online SSAS Tabular tutorial; we also offer lots of other Analysis Services training resources. |
Not only is the architecture different for the two approaches to using Analysis Services; so too is the underlying language.
Suppose that we want to show the total value of transactions in a pivot table (that is, we want to sum Price * Quantity):
This pivot table shows the total quantity sold, and also the total value of all transactions.
Here's a DAX formula which would give the total value measure:
A typical DAX expression, giving total price * quanttiy.
Suppose we want to calculate the transaction value as in the above example. Here's an MDX calculation which would create the necessary measure:
A measure in MDX to create the expression for summing.
As this shows, neither DAX or MDX look remotely like SQL, although DAX has a lot in common with the Excel formula language.
I don't claim to have built huge models containing terabytes of data, but reading through other blogs, it seems reasonable to state two truths:
However, I think the DAX versus MDX question is a red herring. You wouldn't choose Oracle over SQL Server because you preferred Oracle SQL to T-SQL, and you shouldn't choose an Analysis Services server model based on the language that you'll have to learn.
Parts of this blog |
---|
|
Some other pages relevant to the above blogs include:
Kingsmoor House
Railway Street
GLOSSOP
SK13 2AA
Landmark Offices
99 Bishopsgate
LONDON
EC2M 3XD
Holiday Inn
25 Aytoun Street
MANCHESTER
M1 3AE
© Wise Owl Business Solutions Ltd 2023. All Rights Reserved.