How Do I Find Samples and Walkthroughs (Analysis Services - Data Mining)

Setting up a data mining solution from scratch can be a complex task. You must locate, clean, and process data, design and test models, and then deploy solutions. Because no single sample solution or walkthrough can address the varying business needs and data problems that you will encounter, this topic gives you multiple starting points to find information. This includes code samples, descriptions of relevant business scenarios, and walkthroughs.

Where to Find Scenarios

Data mining is a process with many stages. For more information about the overall flow of a data mining solution, see Data Mining Concepts (Analysis Services - Data Mining).

After you have identified the problem you want to solve, you can use Business Intelligence Development Studio to develop your data mining solution. For an overview of the development process in Business Intelligence Development Studio, see Data Mining Projects (Analysis Services - Data Mining).

A critical part of any data mining solution is to identify and obtain relevant data, clean the data, and integrate it into your solution. For more information about data integration and data cleaning using SQL Server Integration Services, see Profiling Data with the Data Profiling Task and Viewer and Typical Uses of Integration Services.

When you have secured the right kind of data for analysis, you can use Business Intelligence Development Studio to model the data, analyze the results, make predictions, or simply browse the models. You can also use SQL Server Management Studio to make predictions, manage, and browse models. For more information, see Using the Data Mining Tools.

Finally, you may want to publish the results of your analysis, or make the model available to users for prediction or browsing. For more information about reporting scenarios and solutions, see Report Life Cycle: Creating, Managing, and Delivering Reports.

Where to Find Samples

To make it easier for you to find a variety of samples for Microsoft SQL Server and BI Development Studio projects, the sample databases and sample applications that previously were included with Books Online are now available on a code-sharing portal. For more information, see System and Sample Databases.

On the samples site of the portal, you can browse through samples contributed by developers, users, and the MVP community, and download the sample databases and code projects. The portal also provides a discussion area where you can report issues and ask questions about the samples for each product.