This article will describe how to get started with Azure Analysis Services and help you understand the configuration and pricing options to create our first Analysis Services instance.

Introduction

SQL Server introduced SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) in 2005 for Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) workloads that require a different type of data management mechanism than typical Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) workloads. As the data in data warehouses tend to be in terabytes to petabytes, dealing with such large volumes of data needs a different engine altogether which SQL Server Analysis Services provided. With the advent of the Azure cloud, due to its obvious benefits of cloud computing, all the data workloads have been moving or migrating to the cloud. On cloud, services are available in an Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service model. For the entire SQL Server technology stack, Azure provides each of the equivalent components as a service like SQL Azure or SQL Managed instance which is a near equivalent of SQL Server on premises. SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) is no exception to this. Azure provides Azure Analysis Services which provides an Online Analytical Processing engine on Azure cloud. Let’s get started with Azure Analysis Services in this article and see how it can be configured.

Creating an Azure Analysis Services Instance

It is assumed that the reader already has an Azure account with all the necessary administrative privileges to operate and administer Azure Analysis Services. Azure provides a free $200 credit account for first-time users to try out this service as well. So, if you have never created a free account on Azure, you can consider availing this benefit to evaluate Analysis Services. Assuming you have access to an Azure account with necessary privileges, and you have already logged on to the Azure account, let’s get started with creating our first instance on Analysis Services.

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