Dear all,

I have installed SQL server 2005 EE and created the sample databases on
one box, I can connect to the server on another box with Management
Studio. I have seen the description about custom rollup and
semi-additive measures, but I have never seen it. How do you setup a
sample cube and play around with it? Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Dino

I have just found an artical from Microsoft web-site:
"Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing in SQL Server 2005"
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...e/dwsqlsy.mspx
I think I can study this article as a start.
However, your inputs are still welcome.

I have to tell me the implication of this study.
I have been working with Cognos Power Play 6.5 and Impromptu 5.0 since
1998, but it's not so successful, at least not as we think. Firstly,
the Power Play is lacking the ability to do any custom-rollup /
semi-additive measures such as in sales analysis, the number of
customers and number of orders against the product and time dimenstion.
This greatly limit the use of OLAP cubes. Secondly, Impromptu generates
SQL with poor performance. Besides, when it's two or three layers /
steps of SQL, such as extracting intersection / union of customers of
buy product group one and product group two as first step, and do
analysis on them as second step, Impromptu is out. Thirdly, Power Play
and Impromptu lack security control, which is a big issue in internal
control in recent year. Fourthly, tools such as Cognos, Business
Object, Microstrategy is expensive both in new purchase and MA.

I sincerely believe SQL Server 2005 can solve these issues, because,
according to what I read, it's more affordable and it addresses OLAP,
reporting, data mining, ETL, UDL, data marts, data warehousing, BI
development nicely. Therefore, we are eager to setup a proof-of-concept
site, with, say, one year of transaction data, I hope to get this done
in a month.

However, I am totally new to SQL server. I am quite experied in Oracle
RDBMS, though. So if you can point me to the right document, I can do
this in a very short period. Thanks again.