Microsoft® SQL Server™ OLAP Services provides a variety of tools and objects to support your needs as you implement an OLAP solution with your data warehouse. Often a number of possible combinations of these components can solve a problem. This section includes descriptions of the available elements, a topic on how they can be used to solve problems, and a discussion about maintaining and synchronizing OLAP data with data in the data warehouse.
The primary element of OLAP is the cube, which contains the data of interest to users. Cubes organize data into dimensions and measures in a multidimensional structure to support the questions users want to ask about organizational data. For example, consider the question, “What was our total sales of hardware in the northwest region in the first quarter of this year?” The cube of data that can answer this question includes three dimensions and one measure:
OLAP Services provides additional objects and advanced features that enable you to create sophisticated solutions for more complex business needs: