| Packt have just released a second version of their ‘MDX Cookbook’, titled ‘MDX With Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services’, authored by Sherry Li and Tomislav Piasevoli. As I’m one of the technical reviewers of this book, it’s put me in a good position to be able to put together a review of the book in this blog post.
The new SQL Server 2012 version of the book is similar in terms of content and structure to the original, presenting a number of solutions to common MDX problems in a ‘recipe’ format. In the first two chapters, the book covers basic MDX techniques, such as the layout of a basic query and a variety of techniques for working with sets. The pace of the book warms up nicely here, starting with a few basic concepts, before gradually getting more complex. After a useful chapter on working with time in MDX, there are some excellent chapters that give what should be useful recipes on common reporting techniques, such as top/bottom members, ranking and averages. As the book progresses, there are some more complex chapters that cover areas such as linear regression, complex sorts and recursion – to name a few. Whether the recipes are simple or complex, they works well, as each recipe is packed with step-by-step instructions and screenshots, all based on the SQL Server 2012 Adventure Works cube. |
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Although it’s also in the first edition, I particularly like the chapter ‘When MDX is Not Enough’, which talks about how modifying the cube design can assist you when writing some MDX queries. Essentially the chapter promotes evaluating if you can modify the cube design in some way, rather than writing very complex MDX, which is something that I completely agree with.
The book differs slightly to the 2008 R2 version in that a few more of the basics (e.g. basic MDX query structure) are covered in the introductory chapters. This seems to work well, meaning someone relatively new to MDX can pick up some simple concepts, whereas someone who is more experienced in MDX will also get a massive amount out of the book.
So overall this comes highly recommend for your bookshelf or Kindle…
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