I have a fairly standard OLTP normalised database and I have realised that I need to do some complex queries, averages, standard deviations across different dimensions in the data.
So I have turned to SSAS and the creation of OLAP cubes.
However to create the cubes I believe my data source structure needs to be in a ‘star’ or ‘snowflake’ configuration (which I don’t think it is right now).
Is the normal procedure to use SSIS to do some sort of ETL process on my primary OLTP DB into another relational DB that is in the proper ‘star’ configuration with facts and dimensions, and then use this DB as the datasource for the OLAP cubes?
Thanks
Yes, that is the basic idea. You take your highly normalized OLTP database and de-normalize it into cubes for the purpose of slicing and dicing the data and then presenting reports on it. The logical design technique is called dimensional modeling. There is a ton of great information about dimensional modeling over at the Kimball Group. Ralph Kimball’s books on the subject are also excellent. If you want to learn more about the BI tools themselves, check out the virtual labs on SSIS, analysis services and more.