Opinions Re SSAS 2008 Over 2005

  • My environment is primarily SQL 2005 (with a few straggling SQL 2000 boxes). We don't have any SQL2008 up and running at this time.

    I am starting to play around a bit with SSAS... and so I've been using SSAS 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. Before I go too far down this path-- does anyone have any compelling arguments to skip SSAS 2005 and start off with SSAS 2008?

    Since it looks like most of the work is in BIDS/Visual Studio-- maybe I'm really asking about the process of creating an Analysis Services Project in BIDS 2008 v 2005. If the differences are slight and 2005 doesn't have any glaring omissions I'd probably stick with 2005 for now. But if I'd have to throw away and re-learn a lot of stuff when it comes time to move to 2008 I'd probably be better starting there.


    Cursors are useful if you don't know SQL

  • If you were moving from prediominantly 2000 to 200(5 or 8) I would jump to 2008 and have the three years extra of support for the product. If you are already on 2008 is there anything in SQL Server 2008R2 that interests you?

    Mark.

    😀

  • We're running 2005 with only a few 2000 boxes left. We haven't touched 2008 at all yet-- but I figured it was possible MSFT could have done a major revamp on the SSAS tools from 2005 to 2008-- potentially making any advances I'd make in SSAS 2000 a wasted effort. Since we haven't even touched 2008, I haven't even looked at 2008R2.

    Hrm. R2... first reference I've seen to it. According to http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/r2.aspx, it's not even out yet ("SQL Server 2008 R2 is the next generation of the Microsoft SQL Server database platform, planned for release in the first half of calendar year 2010") so kind of a moot point for us.

    The only semi concrete arguments I could throw out would be that 2008 is earlier in its support life, but we also haven't touched it at all yet so any "new version gotchas" could get in our way.


    Cursors are useful if you don't know SQL

  • Followup and another question. We've installed SSAS 2008R2 on a test box and I've started fiddling with it but I don't see any differences that look like "big" differences. The cube wizard changed a bit. I don't think it's better or worse-- just different.

    I managed to recreate in SSAS 2008R2 a near duplicate of the test I created in SSAS 2005 and nothing jumped out at me as being streamlined or enhanced; am I missing something? (VERY possible given my current, minimal exposure to SSAS) Are there enhancements I won't want to live without here?

    One final question; after I create a cube I can go into the browser and run some adhoc queries. Is there a way to copy the code used to generate one of these adhoc queries-- and paste it from the BIDS environment into the SSMS environ--

    After creating one such adhoc query in the cube browser, I tried View/Code -- but the new window that opens is named MyCubename.cube[XML] so I suspect that's the XML to create the cube, not the adhoc query. I tried anyway-- pasted it into the SSMS/SSAS environ (under Dbname/New Query)-- as DMX MDX and XMLA. Not surprisingly, they all failed.


    Cursors are useful if you don't know SQL

  • Better memory use, better engine, better performance.. All things we experienced on the same hardware when we uninstalled 2005 SSAS and put in 2008 SSAS..

    CEWII

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply