Troubleshooting MDX Queries

In this post I am going to deviate from Hadoop and HDInsight to focus on SQL Server Analysis Services Mutli-dimensional and more specifically MDX queries. As a consultant one of the common issues I encounter more so than design is that of performance. Typically, the performance issues SSAS users encounter occur in one of two realms: cube processing and query execution, while this post will focus on the latter we start by establishing a higher level of understanding of what happens when an XMLA command is issued against our cube.