3

I heard about there are around 128 Axis in MDX. 

AXIS(0) or simply 0 – Columns

AXIS(1) or simply 1 – Rows

AXIS(2) or simply 2 – Pages

AXIS(3) or simply 3 – Sections

……….

……….

So far I have used only two of them, Column (0) & Row (1).

I am just curious about

  1. how,
  2. where
  3. when or why

can I use other MDX Axis ?

As SQL SSMS only supports two Axis, If I am not wrong.

Thanks.

Aditya
  • 2,299
  • 5
  • 32
  • 54

2 Answers2

2

How :

select ... on 0, ... on 1, ... on 2 and so on .... from [cube]

Where :

Any client that will not crash with unexpected result format ;-)

When / Why :

A client could take advantage of several axis for rendering the result in 3D using 3 axis. Even if the the client does not render the result in 3D, it might be interesting to ask the server to return the result split over 3 axis for ad-hoc (or easier) processing.

Marc Polizzi
  • 9,275
  • 3
  • 36
  • 61
  • which client you are talking about ? As in SSMS I can see only row & columns & not pages & so on. So how can I visualize it like a 3D ? – Aditya Apr 28 '14 at 07:03
  • Dunno about such client : the response is saying "could take ..." ;-) For the second part, I've seen pivot table (sorry do not remember which one) using that mechanism. – Marc Polizzi Apr 28 '14 at 07:04
2

I do not know of any standard client that supports this.

But a typical application that comes to mind: Some years ago (before I was working with Analysis Services), we had a client requiring one and the same report for ten countries and five markets on fifty PowerPoint slides. If we had used Analysis Services at that time, we might have written a custom client application that uses a four dimensional report and thus can get the data to be put into all fifty PowerPoint slides with a single MDX query.

You need not think of OLAP dimensions as dimensions in space. You also can think of them (as the name aliases suggest) as e. g. pages and chapters.

FrankPl
  • 13,205
  • 2
  • 14
  • 40