Interested in learning more about Analysis Services 2012?

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As you all know I published a book about Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development https://www.packtpub.com/getting-started-with-sql-server-2012-cube-development/book. The aim of the book is to teach beginners that want to start their career in Business Intelligence and specifically Analysis Services how to create their first cube and then progress to become an intermediate BI developer.

Now you have the chance of buying this book and getting one for free due to the fact that my publisher have published their 2000th title around IT books. The offer is available until 26thof March 2014.

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You can find the offer here https://bit.ly/1j26nPN

The book that I have written covers the entire BI development process and this is the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Self-service Business Intelligence, Creating Value from Data

  • Identifying common user requirements for a BI system
  • Creating a flexible reporting solution
  • Getting user value through self-service reporting
  • Summary

Chapter 2: Installing SSAS and Preparing for Cube Development

  • Understanding the BI semantic model architecture
  • Choosing the deployment mode
  • Actions
  • Aggregations
  • Custom assemblies
  • Custom rollups
  • Distinct count
  • Linked objects
  • Many-to-many relationships
  • Parent-child hierarchies
  • Translations
  • Writeback
  • Tool support
  • Installing Analysis Services 2012 in multidimensional mode
  • Hands-on steps for installing Analysis Services
  • Hands-on steps for attaching the sample database
  • Starting SQL Server Data Tools for the first time
  • Choosing the correct project
  • Hands-on steps for creating your first cube project
  • Navigating the project environment
  • Solution Explorer
  • Properties window
  • Build menu
  • Hands-on steps for configuring your cube project
  • Summary

Chapter 3: Creating Your First Multidimensional Cube

  • An introduction to data warehousing
  • Understanding data sources
  • Creating the data connection
  • Understanding the data source view
  • Creating a new data source view
  • Adding objects to the data source view
  • Extending the data source view
  • Understanding dimensions
  • Creating the Date dimension
  • Preparing the Date dimension for end users
  • Renaming attributes
  • Creating a hierarchy and attribute relationships
  • Processing the dimension to review the results
  • Creating the first cube
  • Creating the Fact Internet Sales cube
  • Creating additional dimensions and adding them to the cube
  • Summary

Chapter 4: Deploying and Processing Cubes

  • Deploying objects to Analysis Services
  • Deploying the FirstCube project to the server
  • Deploying projects using advanced deployment strategies
  • Processing objects in Analysis Services
  • Processing the FirstCube project
  • Using advanced processing options when processing cubes
  • Scheduling processing
  • Building a SSIS package to control processing
  • Troubleshooting processing errors
  • Partitioning cubes to speed up processing
  • Adding partitions to the FirstCube cube
  • Configuring storage modes in Analysis Services
  • MOLAP
  • ROLAP
  • HOLAP
  • Proactive caching
  • Adding a ROLAP dimension to the FirstCube cube
  • Summary

Chapter 5: Querying Your Cube

  • Understanding multidimensionality
  • Writing MDX queries using Management Studio
  • Connecting to the cube using Management Studio
  • Understanding the anatomy of an MDX query
  • The FROM clause
  • The WHERE clause
  • The query axis clause
  • Important query concepts
  • Unique names
  • Finding unique names of objects
  • Tuples
  • Sets
  • Calculated members
  • Named sets
  • Functions
  • Using Excel as the query tool against cubes
  • Connecting Excel to the FirstCube cube
  • Advanced Excel features
  • Named sets
  • Calculated measures
  • Calculated members
  • Using Reporting Services together with your cube
  • Summary

Chapter 6: Adding Functionality to Your Cube

  • Adding measures
  • Adding additional measure groups
  • Adding dimensions to the FirstCube project
  • Adding referenced dimensions
  • Adding many-to-many dimensions
  • Adding dimensions with parent-child hierarchies
  • Adding calculations to cubes
  • Simple calculated measures
  • Adding advanced calculated measures
  • Adding calculated members
  • Time and date calculations
  • Key Performance Indicators
  • Adding perspectives to simplify cube browsing
  • Adding translations to support global implementations
  • Extending the cube with custom actions
  • Building budget solutions using writeback
  • Summary

Chapter 7: Securing Your Cube Project

  • Understanding role-based security
  • Adding users to the fixed server role
  • Adding custom roles to the database
  • Securing objects in Analysis Services
  • Adding dimension security to the FirstCube project
  • Securing measures
  • Implementing data security
  • Testing data security
  • Enable Visual Totals to restrict what a user can see
  • Understanding security when a user belongs to several roles
  • Implementing dynamic data security
  • Summary

Chapter 8: Using Aggregations to Performance Optimize a Cube

  • Understanding cube aggregations
  • Adding aggregations to improve performance
  • Running the aggregation wizard
  • Adding aggregations manually
  • Using usage-based optimization to optimize the cube
  • Summary

Chapter 9: In-memory, the Future

  • Understanding tabular models
  • Installing a tabular mode instance
  • Creating a tabular mode project
  • Defining the workspace server
  • Connecting to the data source
  • Adding tables to the data model
  • Adding data from other data sources
  • Working with partitions in tabular models
  • Creating calculations
  • Adding calculated columns to the tabular model
  • Creating calculated measures in the tabular model
  • Creating advanced calculations
  • Specifying other types of tables and columns
  • KPIs
  • Adding hierarchies
  • Sorting data based on other columns
  • Hiding columns and tables from the end users
  • Creating perspectives
  • Adding security to your in-memory model
  • Optimizing the tabular model for performance
  • Querying tabular models
  • Summary

Chapter 10: Cubes in the Larger Context

  • Using Microsoft frontend tools to query Analysis Services
  • Developer-focused tools
  • Using Reporting Services to query your cube
  • SharePoint PerformancePoint Services
  • Self-service tools
  • Using Excel as a self-service tool against Analysis Services cubes
  • Using Excel PowerPivot to allow user-created models
  • SharePoint Excel Services
  • Introducing Power View – an analytical tool
  • Third-party tools
  • Summary

To buy it and get the offer available until 26th of March 2014 visit the following site https://www.packtpub.com/getting-started-with-sql-server-2012-cube-development/book