Introduction to Microsoft Analysis Services

Analysis Services is an enterprise-level analytics database engine that allows you to create semantic data models to support business analytics. These data models can be queried by a variety of tools such as Power BI reports, Excel, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports, and custom .NET code.

Analysis Services is available both as an on-premises server called SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) and a cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) called Azure Analysis Services (AAS). It is also the engine behind Power BI Desktop and Power BI service in the cloud.

This presentation gives you an introduction to fundamental concepts of Analysis Services that are common across all implementations. You will discover how Analysis services stores data in a high performance columnar compressed database. You will learn how to use Visual Studio to design a simple data model using Adventure Works sample database, add simple calculations in DAX (Data Analytics Expressions) to it, and deploy it to an Analysis Services Server. Once deployed, you will see examples of how to access the model using custom .NET code and Power BI Desktop.