SQL Server Analysis Services

SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)

SSDT is the primary development environment for creating, modifying, and deploying SSAS objects, including data mining models. It provides a graphical interface for designing multidimensional and tabular models, configuring data sources, defining dimensions and measures, and developing data mining structures and models.

• Visual model design and management
• Integration with Visual Studio
• Deployment and project management

Data Mining Designer

Within SSDT, the Data Mining Designer is a specialized workspace for data mining tasks. It allows you to visually construct mining structures, select algorithms, define input and output columns, train models, and explore model content through various viewers.

• Guided workflow for creating mining models
• Algorithm selection and parameter tuning
• Interactive model content viewers (charts, graphs, tables)
• Scenario-based exploration

Data Mining Viewers

After a data mining model has been trained, the Data Mining Viewers provide powerful ways to explore and understand the results. Each viewer is tailored to the specific algorithm used, offering insights into patterns, relationships, and predictions.

• Dependency Network Viewer (for Naive Bayes, Decision Trees)
• Cluster Viewer (for Clustering)
• Association Viewer (for Association Rules)
• Sequence Clustering Viewer (for Sequence Clustering)
• Decision Tree Viewer (for Decision Trees)
• Linear Regression Viewer (for Linear Regression)
• Logistic Regression Viewer (for Logistic Regression)
• General Association Viewer (for Association Rules)

DMX (Data Mining Extensions)

DMX is a query language used with SQL Server Analysis Services to query data mining models. It allows you to perform various operations, including retrieving model content, generating predictions, and creating new mining models.

Example DMX query to predict customer purchase likelihood:

SELECT
    [Customer].[CustomerID],
    Predict([TargetMail].[TargetDisc]) AS PurchaseLikelihood
FROM
    [TargetMail]
PREDICTION JOIN
    OPENQUERY(SQLServerDataSource, 'SELECT CustomerID FROM Customers') AS T
ON
    [TargetMail].[CustomerID] = T.[CustomerID]

AMO (Analysis Management Objects)

AMO is a .NET library that provides programmatic management of Analysis Services objects. You can use AMO to automate tasks such as creating databases, defining mining structures, training models, and deploying solutions.

Integration Services (SSIS)

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) can be used to extract, transform, and load data into SSAS for data mining. SSIS also includes built-in data mining components that can be used within SSIS packages to build and process data mining models.