The Usage-based Optimization feature is alive and well within SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (AS2k5).  But by default, the QueryLog feature (which samples and records the queries sent to AS2k5 is turned off.  To turn it on, you will need to: 1) Create a SQL database (e.g. QueryLog) on the Analysis Services server (Actually, you can put it on another SQL server if you like, but the preferred option is to place it on the SQL server on the box).   2) Through SQL Management Studio, connect to your Analysis Services, right click, and click on "Properties".   3) Within…

Drillthrough functionality is quite different in AS2k5 vs. AS2k.  The latter originally queries the SQL server directly when you want to drillthrough to the data.  In AS2k5, the drillthrough data is placed directly into the OLAP cube so you can drillthrough without ever connecting to the SQL database (assuming that is your source).   Saying this, this functionality is on by default and does increase the size of the OLAP database.  But performance is not affected and now you have this additional functionality.  For more information, T.K. Anand wrote an excellent paper on this at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsql90/html/sql2k5_anservdrill.asp   To provide an example…