Microsoft® SQL Server™ OLAP Services provides server capabilities to create and manage multidimensional OLAP data and to provide data to clients via PivotTable® Service. Server operations include creating multidimensional data cubes from relational data warehouse databases and storing cubes in multidimensional cube structures, in relational databases, and in combinations of both. Metadata for multidimensional cube structures is stored in a repository in a relational database.
A user interface is provided by the OLAP Manager add-in that runs under a snap-in to Microsoft Management Console (MMC). Programming interfaces are provided to enable custom applications to interact with the object model that controls the server, as well as with the OLAP Manager.
For more information about creating custom programs, see Building OLAP Services Applications.