Those who are following me on Twitter and Facebook know that recently I am reinforcing my own concept for SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). Like many of us, I worked with Analysis Services in early years. In an earlier job, I got many projects for relational database performance tuning and over time, I lost touch with SSAS. This does not mean that I forgot all of the concepts, but the ‘real’ hands-on experience was gathering dust. Looking back at the last five years, I realized that I have deep experience with relational performance tuning, but there are a few new things which I have yet to explore and learn.
My Learning
One weekend I decided to learn SQL Server Analysis Services. I woke up early in the morning at 6 AM and by 7 AM I was sitting with coffee at my dual screen computer monitor. I had a free subscription to Pluralsight so on one screen I turned on their Analysis Services Fundamentals course. This course is well organized and I attended first six modules by 1 PM. After having a quick lunch with my family, I reviewed all the tasks and lessons given in the course. As it was the weekend and I had properly digested all the concepts, I decided to continue the remaining four modules the next day. The next day, the same routine: I followed and finished all the remaining modules along with the exercises. At the end of six hours of video learning and practicing for more than 8 hours, I felt very comfortable with the subject. I re-discovered my knowledge of SSAS which I used to practice a few years ago, before I opted for performance tuning.
Course Details
You can read the official details of the course here yourself. Here is my view of this course. This course is very well structured. I have found many books and attended SSAS training where the training starts with Bottom Up Designing methodology. I have never had any course where the instructor started from Top Down Designing methodology. This course really got my attention as it covers the all the core concepts in a very reasonable time with crisp and clear instructions. After that it jumps to very easy to understand and follow-along demos where one can practice their skills. I am personally a big fan of the AdventureWorks database as that makes our life much easier and everybody has access to that database for free. Thanks to the instructor, Stacia, for using the same database for every single demonstration and exercise.
I have seen many demonstrations where someone takes an already-built cube and imports that into the system and starts explaining various concepts of the cube. I personally do the same when I have to demonstrate some cool new feature of the SSAS in a one hour presentation. However for in-depth learning, the whole game is different and I prefer to learn from the beginning. I prefer to learn how dimensions are built, how measures are categorized and how cubes are built from nothing. One always learns properly when the lesson is explained in structured manner. In this course Stacia has done the same thing – starting from no elements on screen and very quickly building all the modules from scratch. A perfect experience for beginners and experts.
Course Content
This course covers various topics and you can read all the documentations on the official course page. However, as an outline, here are the module names. I am also attaching the image which demonstrates that I have attended every single module of the course. If you stop the course any place during the lesson, when you come back to the course content page tracks your progress; this is very convenient.
- Introduction to Analysis Services
- Dimensional Model Development
- Dimension Development I
- Dimension Development 2
- Cube Development I
- Cube Development 2
- Calculations 1
- Calculations 2
- Database Processing
- Security
Future Expectations
The title of the course says this is an Introduction to Analysis Services. However, I thought this was quite a comprehensive course. I am assuming that there will be another version of this course. Stacia also hinted couple of times during the course, what will be in the advanced course. Well, what I expect in the advanced course is that the quality and presentation stay the same.
Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
147 Comments. Leave new
Hello Pinal….SSAS is one of the interesting and challenging topic…as it deals with large data mainatanence and reporting. I would like to know optimized way of loading data ( ETL ) to cube, best practice of slicing and dicing the data and tuning MDX query. Thanks for providing some oppurtunity all the time to learn new things.
Cheers
Prabha
I’d definitely start with the SQL Server Business Intelligence Overview. The overviews of SSIS and SSAS would be a great starting point.
I Started my career with SQL Server and worked mainly into OLTP systems. I got chance to work on SSIS and SSRS in a datawarehouse project but now i am very much interested to work in SSAS . I need some training/tutorial for self-learning.
I would be very lucky to have this subscription .
I would like to take a couse on Windows & SQL Azure
I am a fresh entrant into the data warehousing world and I’m working toward my BI certification w/ Microsoft. It would be nice to get access to this course.
Bonne chance!
SSAS is a very powerful tool in corporate decision making especially when it comes the concepts of measures or facts I m realirvely new to SSRS n trying my level best to learn it so might excel in my field n help my organization in taking efficient intelligent decision in field of business intelligence … I would really like to go for the mentioned course it is a fantastic learning opportunity …
Hi Pinal,
I wanted to learn the SSAS and Windows phone 7 application related topics.
I am a BI developer for last five years and eager to see what SSAS can help me in terms of DataWarehouse.
I am very curious about Windows phone 7 application working and found this topic in Pluralsight. I hope this will give me a good knowledge in this area.
Thanks,
Apnesh
Hi Pinal,
I had tried to learn SSAS from different books, but not successfull.
I would like to give a try for this.
I’d like to take the SSAS course for the same reason as you – I worked with it a few years ago, but haven’t kept up, and want to dive back in.
Yes – Yes, I would like SSRS + SSAS +SSIS :-) :-) :-)
It is good to see lots of technical topics and technical languages in pluralsight, but i would be happy to see few architecture level topics here,because ultimately we develop our code according to architecture design.so i will be happy to see “3 tier architecture”,”N Tier architecture” or else and their implementation.
I’d defilnitely go for the SQL Server – TSQL course.
SQL is one of those things that people tend to dismiss as being easy although some parts of it are incresibly complicated.
I previewed some of the videos of this course while it was free (for a day, when it first appeared) and I think it does a great job explaining a lot of concepts that are otherwise very hard to understand in depth (e.g. various concurrency scenarios)
Hi
I would like to go for the SSAS course.
LIke the way you make the concepts simple and easy to understand.
Pluralsight is good and very easy to learn new technology.
I would like SSRS training course…
Thanks for your review of the SSAS course
Like most DBAs, I started just administering a few servers. When the number of servers was high, I became the “automation guru” in my company. After that, some people, well positioning in the company, decided to dev a tool for reporting just to save some dollars so, I started with SSRS…
As all we know, learning is an endless climbing. That’s why I’d like to win the subscription. What topics? T-SQL, SSAS, SSRS.
Thanks.
BR,
Alejandro.
Hi Pinal,
I really want to learn SSAS as I am stuck doing only SSRS work for the last 3 years. Learning SSAS will open up new opportunities for me in life.
Thanks for this great website.
Best,
Zakir
I really do love learning this stuff, and I am keen on stepping up into the world of SQL server database work, having worked with other databases for around 13 years now.
Im interested in taking the intro class for data warehousing and business intelligence. It’s becoming more and more important to be able to produce meaningful metrics and KPIs from our client data. I think this class would really help.
I would like to take the Dimensional Model Development because it’s very important to me understand why this is relevant to design a data-warehouse correctly.
Thanks