OLAP and SASS (get cubic)

After my first class was canceled, they gave me a 10% discount on the next, which is SASS, SQL Analytics and MDX to get into the cube.

At first glance OLAP is very similar to SQL, at which I am an old hand. But the OLAP concept is multi-dimensional cubes with a lot of spreadsheet type functionality.

Here is a code snippet:

SELECT
{ [Measures].[Store Sales] } ON COLUMNS,
{
[Date].[2002],
[Date].[2003] } ON ROWS
FROM Sales
WHERE (
[Store].[USA].[CA] )

That translates into the cube above, with a measurement dimension of sales, two date dimensions for 2002 and 2003, all sliced by the state of California.

This could be an interesting and useful class