Edward Roberts said
The intial chapters give a reasonable overview of how to use the wizards and how to get started doing basic customization. Once reaching chapter 7 or so, the book veers into a ditch.
Chapter 7 in particular is frustrating since it throws an enormous number of concepts regarding MDX at the reader then offers MDX queries which point to a SSAS object which is undefined anywhere in the chapter and in no way builds on previous examples. The downloadable code from [...] is of no help since it does not provide the SSAS object which the MDX queries are derived from either. Without knowing the data they are attempting to query, any potential results are meaningless, assuming the query works at all.
After slogging through a couple chapters which used this method, I'm going to try the books from Microsoft press.
This is particularly disappointing since Wrox's books have been so good previous to this one. My most recent was their beginning Visual C# title, and it was outstanding. It was well-organized, explained concepts then built on them with useful, clear, and open-ended examples which encouraged trying things on your own.
The tutorial which came with the free edition of SQL Server 2005 from Microsoft for making a basic SSAS implementation was far more useful than this book.
Dan Zeltner said
Half of the chapters in this book are well planned and very readable. But the other half are just terrible. There are two authors of this book, so it's clear what is behind this. The "bad" chapters are loaded with bad grammar, technical errors and explanations that just don't make sense. This would be bad enough, but the larger problem is that there is no overall planning to these chapters, with illogical jumps between topics and a lack of any conceptual flow. I've been reading technical books for over 25 years, and this is without a doubt the poorest offering I've ever seen published. You can gain some value from the book from the "good" chapters, but the other chapters are so frustrating that I recommend avoiding this book altogether. If you need to ramp up on 2005 Analysis Services, the Microsoft Press Step-by-Step book is a much better choice.
Vladimir Kievsky said
I am a DBA, and bought this book hoping to learn quickly basics of implementing SSAS project. This book exceeded all my expectations. I would call it a practical tutorial on implementation with explanation of all aspects behind SSAS: basic theory, technologies, tools, security, connectivity. Not only it gives you hands-on approach to learning with 99.9% precision in samples, but also explains usage of Microsoft SQL Server 2005's related technologies: Integrated Services, Reporting Services.
The scope of presenation is also very much oriented on practical needs of SSAS utilization.
In short, I am 110% satisfied on my expectations for this book.
Vladimir Kievsky
L. Van Staalduinen said
I do not understand why this book gets such high ratings by other readers. I found this book a real mess. My concise evaluation of "Professional SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 with MDX":
· general: bad as a tutorial, but it might serve as a good reference,
· incorrect code: see below,
· incorrect references to other chapters,
· extremely inconsistent use of names of the cube, tables, dimensions, measures, etc., which makes the learning process more like a puzzle,
· subjects, details are scattered over many chapters (which has some advantages as well), but complicates the learning process.
In chapter 3 of this book it starts with code samples, that are incorrect in almost any sense. Not really being a novice, but having my first experience with SSAS (that is: the 2005 version, I had some experience with the 2000 predecessor), I was blaming my ignorance. I could better do not: I simply had to correct about every code sample.
I made a long list of errata, that I have sent to Wiley/Wrox on January 9, 2007. These errata are very detailed and specific, but I do not find the results in the list of errata of this book on the Wiley or Wrox site. They simply did not process my errata.
So, I finally bought "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services" by Melomed, et.al. (Sams, 2007). My first impression: very good, indeed. I just have it for two days now, so my review will take a few more months.
Leendert.
Anthony Martin said
After reading the previous reviews of this book, I think my expectations may have to been to high. Overall the book is good, but I feel like it could have been more in-depth in numerous areas. I still find myself searching MSDN with help on topics. My main fault with the book was that I constantly had to read sentences over-and-over again due to extremely poor grammer.
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