SSAS Beginner’s Guide: Storage Structure

Relational Databases

Let’s take a quick look at a relational database table of football players...

The table is structured in rows and columns. Note that the column names are fixed – they are not based on the data. This is a difference between relational databases and SSAS databases.

SSAS databases are typically loaded from the relational database to the SSAS database and a copy of the data stored in a different form in the SSAS database. Once the data has been copied, you can delete the relational database (This assumes you are using the default MOLAP option).

2 Dimensional SSAS Databases

SSAS databases are stored in multidimensional structures. Below is an example of an SSAS database with just 2 dimensions. This contains fantasy football points, so the "2" in the first row and first column is the fantasy football points that Reina received during the 11/Aug/2007 game week.