What is the best approach to get from relational OLTP database to OLAP cube?

Question

I have a fairly standard OLTP normalised database and I have realised that I need to do some complex queries, averages, standard deviations across different dimensions in the da

Answer 1

Yes, that is the basic idea. You take your highly normalized OLTP database and de-normalize it into cubes for the purpose of slicing and dicing the data and then presenting reports on it. The logical design technique is called dimensional modeling. There is a ton of great information about dimensional modeling over at the Kimball Group. Ralph Kimball's books on the subject are also excellent. If you want to learn more about the BI tools themselves, check out the virtual labs on SSIS, analysis services and more.