SSAS is used as a tool by organizations to analyze and make sense of information possibly spread out across multiple databases, or in disparate tables or files.

Microsoft has included a number of services in SQL Server related to business intelligence and data warehousing.

It maintained backward compatibility on the API level: although applications written with OLE DB for OLAP and MDX continued to work, the architecture of the product was completely different.

[5][clarification needed] The key events in the history of Microsoft Analysis Services cover a period starting in 1996.

Microsoft Analysis Services takes a neutral position in the MOLAP vs. ROLAP arguments among OLAP products.