I have to say one of the best tools that I've worked with thus far in Analysis Services 2005 is SQL Server Profiler. 

Although Profiler is not new to SQL Server, it is new to Analysis Services and provides developers and DBAs with tons of useful information.  It is very simple to set up a trace and see which users are connected to AS and what MDX queries they are sending to the instance of AS.

Yesterday, a developer and I were trying to resolve an issue we were having involving Panorama NovaView passing incorrect slicer parameters to AS.  We were able to create a trace and show the MDX that was being passed by Panorama to AS and discovered that AS was indeed getting the incorrect MDX due to an error in a Panorama class library.  This saved a ton of time tracking down where the problem was occurring.

Today I started working with Analysis Management Objects (AMO) which is a library of classes that users work with to create and manage Analysis Services objects.  Although DSO 9.0 (Decision Support Objects) is available in Analysis Services 2005, it is being deprecated and developers are encouraged to use AMO instead of DSO in the future.  So far, I've been highly impressed with AMO.  Hopefully I can get a few scripts out in the next week or so.

I've been developing reporting solutions with Micosoft Analysis Services (originally called MS OLAP Services) since it first shipped with SQL Server 7.0.  For the last two months I've been working on a contract at Microsoft using SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 and must admit I'm highly impressed with the product.

There are many improvements to the newest version of Analysis Services.  From an application interface point of view, I'd have to say that the integration with the Visual Studio 2005 environment was a great move.  A standardized interface for all of the SQL Server components (Database Engine, Analysis Services, Integration Services, Notification Services, and Reporting Services) is pretty nice.  I like being able to run queries against multiple databases as well as cubes within the same window. 

Business Intelligence (BI) is a term used to describe software technologies and the management of data to help decision makers make better decisions.  When people ask me what BI is, I tell them its the process of turning raw data into usable information. Through the use of statistical analysis, forecasting, data-mining, and simple reporting, this usable information translates into knowledge for end users.  BI applications are sometimes referred to as Decision Support or OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) systems.

I've been designing and developing BI software applications through my own company, dymetrics, inc., for the last six years.  My experience includes the development of data warehouses/marts, multi-dimensional databases, and user interfaces for displaying reports and querying data.

I use both Oracle and SQL Server for data warehouse/mart development, Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services for OLAP development, and ASP.Net for front-end development.  If you are in need of a consultant to help you with your Business Intelligence intiative, feel free to email me using the link in the navigation bar to the left.