Cubes

A cube, which is derived from a cube model, precisely defines an OLAP cube and contains a subset of metadata objects that are based on the metadata objects in the cube model. Cubes are the primary OLAP objects that are queried against a Cubing Services Cube Server using the MDX query language.

The cube facts object and list of cube dimensions are subsets of those in the referenced cube model. Cubes are appropriate for tools and applications that do not use multiple hierarchies because cube dimensions allow only one cube hierarchy for each cube dimension.

Cubes can be used when optimizing a cube model to specify the regions of the cube model that are the most active and the most important. You can specify optimization slices that define specific regions of the cube that are most often queried. You can select specific cube levels, the All cube level if you defined an All level in the parent hierarchy, or Any if no one cube level is significantly more important than any other cube level.

The properties of a cube are described in the following table.

Table 1. Cube properties
Property Description
Cube model Cube model from which the cube is derived.
Cube facts object Cube facts object that is used in the cube. The cube facts object is derived from the facts object in the cube model.
List of cube dimensions Ordered list of cube dimensions that are used in the cube. Each cube dimension is derived from a corresponding dimension in the cube model. One cube hierarchy is associated with each cube dimension.
List of optimization slices Set of zero or more optimization slices. Each optimization slice includes:
  • Set of optimization levels where one optimization level exists for each cube dimension in the cube. An optimization level references:
    • A cube dimension and its corresponding cube hierarchy
    • A cube level, Any, or All


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