Designing Cubes

A cube is a multidimensional structure that contains dimensions and measures. Dimensions define the structure of the cube, and measures provide the numerical values of interest to the end user. As a logical structure, a cube allows a client application to retrieve values as if cells in the cube defined every possible summarized value. Cell positions in the cube are defined by the intersection of dimension members. Dimension hierarchies provide aggregation paths within a cube. Measure values are aggregated at non-leaf levels to provide member values in the dimension hierarchies.

Note

For more information about performance issues related to cube design, see the SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Performance Guide.

The following table describes the topics in this section.

Topic	Description
Defining Cubes	Describes how to use the Cube Wizard to define a cube, dimensions, dimension attributes, and user-defined hierarchies.
Defining Measure Groups	Describes how to define measure groups.
Defining Measures	Describes how to define measures.
Defining Cube Dimensions, Cube Hierarchies, and Cube Attributes	Describes how to define cube dimensions, hierarchies and attributes.
Defining Dimension Usage Relationships	Describes how to define and configure cube dimension - measure group relationships.
Defining Calculations	Describes how to define and configure a calculation in an MDX script.
Defining and Configuring Actions (Analysis Services - Multidimensional Data)	Describes how to define and configure an action.
Defining Perspectives	Describes how to define and configure a perspective.
Defining Stored Procedures	Describes how to work with stored procedures.