Amazon.com description: Product Description: Online analytical processing (OLAP) offers powerful tools for making sense of data, and Microsoft's OLAP Server makes OLAP far more accessible and cost-effective than it has ever been before. This book combines a complete introduction to OLAP technology and applications with a start-to-finish guide to implementing and maximizing Microsoft OLAP Server. John Shumate starts by introducing the key concepts underlying OLAP and multidimensional data analysis, and helping readers understand when it will (and won't) be useful to them. Understand the architecture and components of Microsoft's OLAP Server, and discover how Microsoft's solution compares with those of competitors. Next, walk step-by-step through every step of planning, building, and deploying online analytical processing application using Microsoft's OLAP Server. For each phase of the project, Shumate provides goals and approaches, practical examples, a detailed to-do list, and recipe-style instructions for performing specific operations with OLAP Server.