Using the Data Mining Tools

Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services provides tools that you can use to create data mining solutions to address specific business problems.

In Business Intelligence Development Studio, the Data Mining Wizard makes it easy to create mining structures and mining models that are based on OLAP and relational data sources. You can use the wizard to define structures and models that use specific data mining techniques to analyze your data. You can also use Data Mining Designer to define your mining models even more, and to explore and work with the results of the models.

SQL Server Management Studio provides tools that you can use to manage and explore your mining models after they are created. SQL Server Integration Services contains tools that you can use to clean data, to automate tasks such as creating predictions and updating models, and to create text mining solutions.

The following sections provide more information about the data mining tools in SQL Server.

Data Mining Wizard

The Data Mining Wizard is the entry point within Business Intelligence Development Studio for creating data mining solutions . The wizard is designed to guide you through the process of creating a data mining structure and an initial related mining model, and includes the tasks of selecting an algorithm type and a data source, and defining a case table.

For More Information:Data Mining Wizard (Analysis Services - Data Mining)

Data Mining Designer

After you use the Data Mining Wizard to create a mining structure and an initial mining model, the Data Mining Designer opens. In the designer, you can manage your mining structures, create new mining models, and deploy, browse, compare, and create predictions against existing mining models.

For More Information:Data Mining Designer

SQL Server Management Studio

After you create and deploy mining models to a server, you can use SQL Server Management Studio to perform management and exploratory tasks, such as viewing and processing the models, and creating predictions against them. Management Studio also contains a query editor that you can use to design and execute Data Mining Extensions (DMX) queries.

For More Information:Data Mining in SQL Server Management Studio

Integration Services Data Mining Tasks and Transformations

SQL Server Integration Services provides tools that you can use to automate common data mining tasks, such as processing a mining model and creating prediction queries. For example, if you have a mining model that is built from a dataset of potential customers, you could create an Integration Services package that automatically updates the model every time the dataset is updated with new customers. You could then use the package to create a prediction, by separating the potential customers into two tables. One table could contain likely customers and the other table customers who are not likely to purchase any products.