Designing Multidimensional Objects without an Existing Relational Schema
Business Intelligence Development Studio supports two methods of working with relational schemas when defining OLAP objects within an Analysis Services project or database. Generally, you will define OLAP objects based on a logical data model constructed in a data source view within an Analysis Services project or database. This data source view is defined based on schema elements from one or more relational data sources, as customized in the data source view. For more information about OLTP databases and data warehouses, see Database Basics. For more information about defining data source views and data sources, see Designing Data Source Views (Analysis Services) and Defining Data Sources (Analysis Services).
While you generally define OLAP objects based on an existing data source defined in an Analysis Services project or database, such as a data warehouse or production database, you can also define OLAP objects in an Analysis Services project or database without a data source or data source view. This approach is sometimes called top-down design and is frequently used for prototyping and analysis modeling. When you use this approach, you then use the Schema Generation Wizard create the underlying data source view and data sources objects in the Analysis Services project and the relational schema in an underlying database based on the OLAP objects defined in an Analysis Services project or database. Analysis Services cubes and dimensions must be bound to columns in a data source.
Working with the Schema Generation Wizard
The following table describes the topics in this section that explain how to work with the Schema Generation Wizard.
Topic |
Description |
|---|---|
Provides an overview of how to use the Schema Generation Wizard. |
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Describes how to generate the schema for the subject area and staging area databases. |
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Describes the schema that is generated for the subject area and staging area databases. |
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Describes the incremental generation capabilities of the Schema Generation Wizard. |
See Also