Monday, August 31, 2015

SQL Server Brain Basher of the Week #027 - Business Intelligence

Well known three functionalities provided by a business intelligence solution are; Drilling down, Drilling through and Slicing and dicing. This week question is based on it, here is the question;

What is slicing and dicing in a business intelligence solution?


When data in the data model is analyzed, filters are heavily used and filtering can be done by slicing and dicing dimensions too. Slicing and dicing describe the way you navigate via dimensions for analyzing data. If you are;
  • Slicing
    It means that you are accessing a slice of the model (cube) using one particular member of one dimension. Example, if you are analyzing sales for the date of 20150830 from Date dimension, you are slicing the cube for 20150830 for viewing sales, with All member of all other dimensions.
     
  • Dicing
    It means that you are accessing a single value selecting one member from all dimensions. Example is, you are accessing sales for 20150830 date, Red pen product, Black Smith customer from a model that has three dimensions: Date, Product and Customer.

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