tomchester.net -- Analysis Services Articles

2011 Public MDX Classes

Tom — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:55:07 +0000

May 5-6: Seattle, Portland or remote click here

Aug 11-12: Seattle, Portland or remote (link forthcoming)

Words of Wisdom Concerning the Idiocy Known as NoSQL

Tom — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:42:08 +0000

Words of wisdom culled from the internet concerning NoSQL, the grab bag of technologies dredged from the trash heap of decades past:

I can't wait for NoSQL to die

It's painful to watch a hierarchical data model being touted as if it were something new

Brian Aker's hilarious presentation

MDX Course Oct 21-22

Tom — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:46:59 +0000

Two day course which can be attended in Seattle (Bellevue), Portland (Beaverton), or remotely. Go here for details.

MDX Course, Aug 12-13

Tom — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:25:27 +0000

This is a two day course which can be attended in Seattle (Bellevue), Portland (Beaverton), or remotely. Go here for details.

Performance Point 2010

Tom — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:52:00 +0000

In Performance Point 2010, Microsoft has corrected some of the fatal shortcomings that exist in the 2007 version.

Many-to-Many Dimensions, How Scalable?

Tom — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:19:51 +0000

SSAS introduced the concept of many-to-many relationships between dimensions, an outstanding development that partially overcomes the rigidity of strict star/snowflake schemas. But with this feature came all sorts of warnings from Microsoft.

Data Warehousing Not So Best Practices

Tom — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:49:54 +0000

Certain rules of database design are commonly discarded in data warehouses, not necessarily for the good.

Performance Point, Ugh

Tom — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:27:14 +0000

Performance Point 2007 is one of the most abysmal pieces of BI-related software I've had the misfortune of working with. In short:

Analytic Grids/Charts, which otherwise have some nice features, provide what is beyond a doubt the drabbest UI I've seen since the advent of the GUI.
Scorecards can be made to look decent, but are so lacking in functionality as to be nearly useless.
Planning Server is so dysfunctional that it's a joke.

Ongoing De-Evolution of Data Management

Tom — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:50:53 +0000

It's bad enough that we've had XML foisted on us. It's become a regular occurrence that Microsoft foists some new, lame data store, e.g. SharePoint lists. The final salt in the wound are the self-anointed experts who applaud these abysmal technologies.

Drillthrough

Tom — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:43:09 +0000

It's rare that a cube will contain transaction details. So once a user drills down to the bottom of a cube, it's common to want to see the transactions that comprise a given value. That's what drillthrough is for, or at least that was the case in the old days.