Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005: And Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform

This book is a great read and a great reference. It has helped me to resolve issues and quickly overcome obstacles with SSAS. I always recommend it to all of our new SSAS developers.

Having a collection of over 100 computer books, I spend a lot of time researching to make sure I have the ones that matter and this book is definitely one of those. 700 pages of content, no padding. Seems this will be the standard general guide for SSAS. The standard of all the chapters is high but there are excellent chapters on integrating SSAS with custom applications (chapter 17) and Microsoft Office (chapter 19) which I found particularly welcome. I have also found the list of Internet resources at the end of each chapter to be quite useful. It's hard to think of what to criticise; I would have liked a third chapter on MDX but then the new books devoted to SSAS MDX will be out shortly. In summary, I wouldn't wait for competing general guides to come out, this one is as good as it will get.

As a Consultant and trainer (not to mention father to two little tear ways) it's rare that I get chance to consume anything other than MOC manuals, whitepapers and the odd web cast but I've been able to find the time to read most of this book and found it to be not only technically rigorous but also a good read - there's not too many door-stop techo books out there that do both. To cover so much, in such depth without ever losing the big picture is a great credit to the author. I can heartily recommend this title to any one who's looking to master the huge feature set that is SSAS 2005

Normally I cannot read technical books just before I go to bed. 2 - 5 pages at best, and I am turning off the lights and the next day I cannot remember what I read. This book reads well and keeps my attention like a good novel. Teo has a great sense of the types of questions an engaged reader would form in his or her mind when learning something new. At times it feels he is writing the answers directly to me, just as I think of the questions. I already have a grasp of dimensional modeling practices and theory, so I am not sure how the book would be for the absolute beginner. But for a beginner to SQL Server Analysis Services 2005, I cannot imagine anyone writing a better book. To learn more about the practices and theory of dimensional modeling, the author recommends "The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling, 2nd Edition"." I have read it and agree. Another thing I really like about this book is the sense of honesty I get from the author. Not that I think other authors are lying to me, but the normal publishing process has many interests to please. This book is a self-published book by someone not working for a major corporation such as Microsoft. There are a few helpful insights in the book that I suspect may have been edited out if the book was published by a large, well-connected publishing company, or if the author was a Microsoft employee or an employee of a major Microsoft Partner. If you cannot tell by now, I highly recommend this book.

This is a large work with over 600 pages. The structure and style the author uses is very conducive to learning for me. It is a book that can be read in sequence from front to back (rare these days in technical books). It is obvious that the author has deep knowledge and expertise in SSAS as he explains why SSAS 2005 is designed as it is and (in brief) how it differs from SSAS 2000. He uses bullet notes to emphasize key points and the structure of each chapter is tuned to learning. The author gives you the explanation of UDM and why it is used in SSAS 2005 along with the pros and cons. He describes a pristeen 4 step design methodology (doesn't evangelize) which, for me as a novice, is appreciated. He explains fact tables, dimension tables, measures, hierarchies and attributes (key to SSAS 2005) and how these are best used to create real world solutions. There is plenty of advice on how to accomplish these with caveats where necessary. I found this a very well done book and extremely useful in my work. I would recommend this book to anyone of any level up to those who actually wrote the code as you will gain a wealth of knowledge and be able to apply it right away. The one suggestion I have is that the reader have SSAS 2005 at hand when reading. Going through the tutorials and examples is the aspect that gives me longer knowledge retention.