Cube Problem

I have a cube in which I am putting the data on a regualar basis by running a SSIS package.
I am currently storing my data in partitions of 15 days. I store the datetime upto which I have transferred the data into the cube in a seaprate table and after it I transfer the updated data from my fact table into the cube.E.g Suppose last datetime stored is 15 Aug ,I will transfer the data into the cube from the fact table which has been in the fact table after 15 aug.
But the problem I am facing now is that the newly updated data can contain some of the data of the previous data (of the same datetime)which has been moved to the cube earlier.

So now The problem is want to move only that updated data from the fact table which is not present the cube.
Please help .......any help is welcome....

Hi,

Not to fimilar with this technique, but one way is to process your cube using and incremental update then setup the configuration to only select the records that have been updated.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188966.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189431.aspx

Hope that helps a bt

Matt

|||Sorry if I misunderstand, but what about SUM() using GROUP BY in your partition select statement? That would sum any duplicates.

cube partitions strategy

Hi,
I have a product dimension with the following hierarchy:
Category->Brand->Type->...->UPC
There are 10 category items in the hierarchy. In every update, we will add some new products under 1 or 2 categories, which will cause rebuilding the whole cube, which takes very long time.
Can I partition the cube along the category level so that only the affected partition needs to be rebuild in each update?
or what's better partition strategy here?
Thanks for your attention.
That's probably what I would do, cut the partition the along categories
so only affected category will be reprocessed, then create a virtual
cube on top so from users' point of view, there's one cube.
Or you can incrementally update your dimension but it's more complicated
because you have to be careful about the members and calculated members
to avoid double count.
Eric
yongliyang wrote:

> Hi,
> I have a product dimension with the following hierarchy:
> Category->Brand->Type->...->UPC
> There are 10 category items in the hierarchy. In every update, we will add some new products under 1 or 2 categories, which will cause rebuilding the whole cube, which takes very long time.
> Can I partition the cube along the category level so that only the affected partition needs to be rebuild in each update?
> or what's better partition strategy here?
> Thanks for your attention.
Eric Li
SQL DBA
MCDBA

cube partitions strategy

Hi,
I have a product dimension with the following hierarchy:
Category->Brand->Type->...->UPC
There are 10 category items in the hierarchy. In every update, we will add
some new products under 1 or 2 categories, which will cause rebuilding the w
hole cube, which takes very long time.
Can I partition the cube along the category level so that only the affected
partition needs to be rebuild in each update?
or what's better partition strategy here?
Thanks for your attention.That's probably what I would do, cut the partition the along categories
so only affected category will be reprocessed, then create a virtual
cube on top so from users' point of view, there's one cube.
Or you can incrementally update your dimension but it's more complicated
because you have to be careful about the members and calculated members
to avoid double count.
Eric
yongliyang wrote:

> Hi,
> I have a product dimension with the following hierarchy:
> Category->Brand->Type->...->UPC
> There are 10 category items in the hierarchy. In every update, we will ad
d some new products under 1 or 2 categories, which will cause rebuilding the
whole cube, which takes very long time.
> Can I partition the cube along the category level so that only the affecte
d partition needs to be rebuild in each update?
> or what's better partition strategy here?
> Thanks for your attention.
Eric Li
SQL DBA
MCDBA

Cube Partitions Setup

I have use the cube partitions in AS2000. It allows us to use the data slice to define the subset of the cube data. However, I don't see this in AS2005. If I partition the cube in monthly basis, then how AS2005 to handle the query. Is it look through all the partitions since it don't have the data slice setup?

In AS2005 partition slices are defined bit differently.

To define what data should go into partition you can define partition binding. You can change source for your partition to define restriction on the data coming into Analysis Services.

As for Anlaysis Services, it will detect the slice automatically. ( this is MOLAP case)

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Cube Partitions

I deleted default partition that is created while cube processing. and after that I have created 2 new partitions for different date ranges. even after processing i am unable to see any data in the cube. I am following right process of using partitions? Please let me know how i can get data?

Thanks in adv

Everything you've done sounds fine - so it should work. Can you check how you specified the data ranges for the partitions ? During processing, how many rows do you see being read into the partitions ? How did you check that the cube is empty ? Perhaps you were looking at different slice ?|||

If you are doing partitions with a query you can paste the TSQL into Managament Studios query window and see what the query returns.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

|||

So, deleting default partition doesnt hamper it right..let me check with query and get back to you.

thanks for the replies.

Cube Partition

How do you slice a Cube Partition, if you want it to slice by "less than" instead of "equal to"? Analysis Services does not give you a choice.
Example: Time.FiscalYear AllTime.FY2005

Unfortunately, it looks like it can't be done without explicitly naming all the members included in the "less than" slice. For instance, if you wanted "less than" 2003, generally in MDX you'd just say {null:[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}. But, for reasons I'll explain below, it doesn't appear that SSAS allows such an expression as the slice for a partition. Instead, you have to manually list all the members: {[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2001],[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2002],[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}

If I understand this correctly, the "slice" for a partition has to be a string which resolves to a set. The way SSAS resolves it to a set is by running it through StrToSet("your slice",CONSTRAINED). The CONSTRAINED parameter tells it to only accept a simple set of explicitly named members. So StrToSet("{null:[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}",CONSTRAINED) blows up during processing with the following error: "Errors in the OLAP storage engine: The restrictions imposed on partition slice where violated."

Though that's not a very good error message, I think that's what's happening because the following MDX query blows up:

select StrToSet("{null:[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}",CONSTRAINED) on 0
from [Adventure Works]

One problem is that when you do a syntax check in Visual Studio when you're constructing the partition slice, it says it checks out fine... I've reported this as a bug:
https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=155391

Just as reference on where I got my info...

Info on what the Slice property of a partition allows (i.e. only something that works with StrToSet and CONSTRAINED):
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.analysisservices.partition.slice(d=ide).aspx

Info on how the CONSTRAINED parameter works:
http://cwebbbi.spaces.msn.com/blog/cns!7B84B0F2C239489A!488.entry

Cube Partition

How do you slice a Cube Partition, if you want it to slice by "less than" instead of "equal to"? Analysis Services does not give you a choice.
Example: Time.FiscalYear AllTime.FY2005

Unfortunately, it looks like it can't be done without explicitly naming all the members included in the "less than" slice. For instance, if you wanted "less than" 2003, generally in MDX you'd just say {null:[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}. But, for reasons I'll explain below, it doesn't appear that SSAS allows such an expression as the slice for a partition. Instead, you have to manually list all the members: {[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2001],[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2002],[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}

If I understand this correctly, the "slice" for a partition has to be a string which resolves to a set. The way SSAS resolves it to a set is by running it through StrToSet("your slice",CONSTRAINED). The CONSTRAINED parameter tells it to only accept a simple set of explicitly named members. So StrToSet("{null:[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}",CONSTRAINED) blows up during processing with the following error: "Errors in the OLAP storage engine: The restrictions imposed on partition slice where violated."

Though that's not a very good error message, I think that's what's happening because the following MDX query blows up:

select StrToSet("{null:[Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]}",CONSTRAINED) on 0
from [Adventure Works]

One problem is that when you do a syntax check in Visual Studio when you're constructing the partition slice, it says it checks out fine... I've reported this as a bug:
https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=155391

Just as reference on where I got my info...

Info on what the Slice property of a partition allows (i.e. only something that works with StrToSet and CONSTRAINED):
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.analysisservices.partition.slice(d=ide).aspx

Info on how the CONSTRAINED parameter works:
http://cwebbbi.spaces.msn.com/blog/cns!7B84B0F2C239489A!488.entry

Cube Operator

When we are using more than 10 columns in cube operator it is throwing error that maxiimum limit is 10.
but it is mandatory for my project to use more than 10 columns.
So could any one tell how to do this.
If not at all possible by using cube operator how else can this be done to get the same result

The only way to do this is to generate the query with the necessary GROUP BY clauses yourself. The sheer number of combinations that you need to take care of will be huge. You could write a stored procedure or client side script that can generate a query for each combination of GROUP BY and UNION them together to get the same results. It almost seems like this is more suited for OLAP.

Cube not showing up in Metadata Browser

I have a cube that is processed, available, browsable, etc., but that does not appear in the list of available cubes in the following scenarios:

Open a new MDX Query window in the Managment Studio: the Metadata browser displays the error message "Error loading Metadata: No cubes were found.", Yet I can still write a query and execute it against the cube. Use excel and try connecting to the cube using the "Data", "Import External Data", "New Database Query", "Olap Cubes","<New Data Source>", create a new "MS OLE DB Provider for Analysis Services 9.0" data source pointing to the server/database, and no cube names show up in the cube drop down. Proclarity 6.1: same problem: cube shows as not processed or unavailable and I can't connect to it.

The cube works great with the Excel Cube Analysis Add-in, so I'm suspecting it is one of the new features of AS 2005 that is causing the problem. I am using Many-to-Many dimension relationships in the cube, and mutiple measure groups. Other than that, the cube is pretty straight-forward.

Any ideas on what would make this happen? I've tried deleting the cube from the server and completely redeploying the project, changing the cube name to not have a space in the name and a few other simple things.

Regards,

Clayton

This has to fall into the "bonehead" category.

The cube's "Visible" property was set to "False". Not sure how this happened, but for the record, the solution is to set the "Visible" property to "True".

|||I don't know about "bonehead." I spent 4 hours with this exact same problem. Not until I found this post did I think to view the cubes XML and change <visible>false</visble> to <visible>true</visible>. I mean, is there even a way to change this property though the designer? I just about went crazy. Thanks.
|||

hello,

yes, if you open your project in BIDS, and open cube designer, look in the properties panel - it should show the cube and one of the properties listed in there is Visible (in the Advanced category).

hope this helps,

|||I did the same thing. I think what we all have accidentally done was select a dimension that we wanted to hide then went to the properties window to set the Visible property. What I just noticed is that if you click on on one of the dimensions while on the Cube Structure tab the properties window does not change to the dimension and the Visible property on the cube gets set to false accidentally. At least that how I ended up doing it. I hope this helps someone else realize how it happened to them.

Cube not showing up in Metadata Browser

I have a cube that is processed, available, browsable, etc., but that does not appear in the list of available cubes in the following scenarios:

Open a new MDX Query window in the Managment Studio: the Metadata browser displays the error message "Error loading Metadata: No cubes were found.", Yet I can still write a query and execute it against the cube.

Use excel and try connecting to the cube using the "Data", "Import External Data", "New Database Query", "Olap Cubes","<New Data Source>", create a new "MS OLE DB Provider for Analysis Services 9.0" data source pointing to the server/database, and no cube names show up in the cube drop down.

Proclarity 6.1: same problem: cube shows as not processed or unavailable and I can't connect to it.

The cube works great with the Excel Cube Analysis Add-in, so I'm suspecting it is one of the new features of AS 2005 that is causing the problem. I am using Many-to-Many dimension relationships in the cube, and mutiple measure groups. Other than that, the cube is pretty straight-forward.

Any ideas on what would make this happen? I've tried deleting the cube from the server and completely redeploying the project, changing the cube name to not have a space in the name and a few other simple things.

Regards,

Clayton

This has to fall into the "bonehead" category.

The cube's "Visible" property was set to "False". Not sure how this happened, but for the record, the solution is to set the "Visible" property to "True".

|||I don't know about "bonehead." I spent 4 hours with this exact same problem. Not until I found this post did I think to view the cubes XML and change <visible>false</visble> to <visible>true</visible>. I mean, is there even a way to change this property though the designer? I just about went crazy. Thanks.|||

hello,

yes, if you open your project in BIDS, and open cube designer, look in the properties panel - it should show the cube and one of the properties listed in there is Visible (in the Advanced category).

hope this helps,

|||I did the same thing. I think what we all have accidentally done was select a dimension that we wanted to hide then went to the properties window to set the Visible property. What I just noticed is that if you click on on one of the dimensions while on the Cube Structure tab the properties window does not change to the dimension and the Visible property on the cube gets set to false accidentally. At least that how I ended up doing it. I hope this helps someone else realize how it happened to them.

Cube not showing up in Metadata Browser

I have a cube that is processed, available, browsable, etc., but that does not appear in the list of available cubes in the following scenarios:

Open a new MDX Query window in the Managment Studio: the Metadata browser displays the error message "Error loading Metadata: No cubes were found.", Yet I can still write a query and execute it against the cube.

Use excel and try connecting to the cube using the "Data", "Import External Data", "New Database Query", "Olap Cubes","<New Data Source>", create a new "MS OLE DB Provider for Analysis Services 9.0" data source pointing to the server/database, and no cube names show up in the cube drop down.

Proclarity 6.1: same problem: cube shows as not processed or unavailable and I can't connect to it.

The cube works great with the Excel Cube Analysis Add-in, so I'm suspecting it is one of the new features of AS 2005 that is causing the problem. I am using Many-to-Many dimension relationships in the cube, and mutiple measure groups. Other than that, the cube is pretty straight-forward.

Any ideas on what would make this happen? I've tried deleting the cube from the server and completely redeploying the project, changing the cube name to not have a space in the name and a few other simple things.

Regards,

Clayton

This has to fall into the "bonehead" category.

The cube's "Visible" property was set to "False". Not sure how this happened, but for the record, the solution is to set the "Visible" property to "True".

|||I don't know about "bonehead." I spent 4 hours with this exact same problem. Not until I found this post did I think to view the cubes XML and change <visible>false</visble> to <visible>true</visible>. I mean, is there even a way to change this property though the designer? I just about went crazy. Thanks.|||

hello,

yes, if you open your project in BIDS, and open cube designer, look in the properties panel - it should show the cube and one of the properties listed in there is Visible (in the Advanced category).

hope this helps,

|||I did the same thing. I think what we all have accidentally done was select a dimension that we wanted to hide then went to the properties window to set the Visible property. What I just noticed is that if you click on on one of the dimensions while on the Cube Structure tab the properties window does not change to the dimension and the Visible property on the cube gets set to false accidentally. At least that how I ended up doing it. I hope this helps someone else realize how it happened to them.

Cube not refreshing?

AS and RS 2005

My cube is built on views both for dimensions and the fact table.

I am using reporting services and the report i have designed works fine except it does not update when i change the data. I can see the change in a select from the view so it is definitly there. It does refresh if i reprocess the cube. This happens in rolap as well as molap.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,

Jules

Moving to Reporting Services forum.

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

|||

why have you moved this?

does that mean it is reporting services that is caching the data?

It looks more like a problem with analysis services to me given that the report displays the correct data if a reprocess the cube.

Whats you thinking here.

Please help

Thanks,

Jules

|||

Most chances it is Reporting services problem. You can try and browse your AS cube using cube browser built-in in SQL Management studio to see if new numbers are avaliable.

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Cube Not Loading Data

Hi Everyone,
I have a very Huge Cube with 50 measuregroups and around 100 dimensions.
When i do the deploying and processsing of the Cube, the console shows no errors.
console shows that the rows are being extracted .
But when i try to query the cube or try to create any report using that I dont see any data.
I can see the dimensional Data but not the Cube.
Can anyone Point me to the issue here ?

Thankyou
Vidya

Hi Vidya,

Not sure how you query or create report but best place to start is check if you can Browse data in Visual Studio.

In Visual Studio Cube Browse data if you see #VALUE! then you check measure names in calculated measures.

I will say once you are able to see data in Visual Studio then start creating reports.

Regards - Ashok

|||

Hello! With a cube of this large size you can have the problem with a lot of meta data that will have to be displayed for any client.

If you build a cube with one measure group and ten dimensions, will you see any data?

Regards

Thomas Ivarsson

Cube Navigation

Hi,

I have a small problem which I hope that someone can help me with.

I have got a fact table looking at website usage and this fact table is related to multiple dimensions. What I want to do Is to look for a particular page that a user has accessed and go 2 steps backwards using the time dimension to see what page was accesed at that time. I do not want to expand the whole page dimension and sort it by time, instead I want to display the name of the page that was accessed in relation to that specific event.

Does all of this make sense? I have been trying to create a recursive solution in MDX without much success.

I am thankful for any guidance that anyone can give me!

Regards

Stefan

Hello Stefan. What you are looking for is probably in one of the data mining algorithms that are part of SSAS2005. It can be the "MS Sequence Clustring". Post your question in the DM newsgroup.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

|||Hi Thomas,

thank you four your answer. But I am still wondering if there is no way of designing a recursive MDX solution for this problem.

What I have done so far is created a subcube with the users who have registered on the site.

What I want to is basically this:

Start at one point in time and move backwards until I find a certain page (congratulations you have registered) and then move two steps back in time and write out what page they looked at then. The result should have username on rows and page name on the columns

I want to design that as a measure so that I can reuse it for every user within that subcube.

My time dimension consists of hour - minute - seconds and my time hiearchy is divided in the same way. I am almost there, but I still have problems writing out the name of the actual page dimension when I find that point in time.

I hope that this make it a little bit clearer what I am trying to achieve.

Thank you for taking your time to help me!

Regards

Stefan

Cube Name Changed After Processing (but I didn''t do anything)

Hello,

I have a cube that has been working fine for a while. Then I re-ran the SSIS to bring in refreshed data (which I've done many times before) and reprocessed the cube. I never changed the name of the cube or anything like that (at least on purpose).

Now when I open SSRS to run a report, it says that it cannot find the cube. I do have a Perspective in there, but I wasn't using it. Previously it had the cube's name Stage and the perspective's name Perspective. Now I see Perspective and Perspective 1.

Any idea what could have caused this and what I can do to change it back?

Thank you.

-Gumbatman

Hi,

Re-processing the cube will not rename the cube, something else should have happened.

To double check the cube name, open BI Development Studio -> File -> Open Analysis Services Database: this will connect to the database; open the cube editor and check (in the properties grid) what the cube name is. Or you can use SQL Management Studio and bring up the cube Properties dialog.

If the cube was renamed indeed from 'Stage' to 'Perspective 1', you can track what happened (who changed what) if you had the FlighRecorder tracing enabled (that logs all the commands sent to server, but usually it's not on for performance reasons).

Adrian

|||

Adrian,

I checked out the properties and the name of the cube is still "Stage".

When I open the cube Browser in BIDS I can chose either Stage or Perspective. However, when I want to build a new report in Reporting Serivces (sorry I forgot to mention that) I only get the choices of Perspective or Perspective 1.

In RS, it was always Stage or Perspective and after I did the processing it changed to Perspective or Perspective 1.

Any ideas of where I should look? I have no idea if I had the recorder thing on to trace this. It is only on my laptop for development.

Thank you for the help.

-Gumbatman

Cube Name Changed After Processing (but I didn''t do anything)

Hello,

I have a cube that has been working fine for a while. Then I re-ran the SSIS to bring in refreshed data (which I've done many times before) and reprocessed the cube. I never changed the name of the cube or anything like that (at least on purpose).

Now when I open SSRS to run a report, it says that it cannot find the cube. I do have a Perspective in there, but I wasn't using it. Previously it had the cube's name Stage and the perspective's name Perspective. Now I see Perspective and Perspective 1.

Any idea what could have caused this and what I can do to change it back?

Thank you.

-Gumbatman

Hi,

Re-processing the cube will not rename the cube, something else should have happened.

To double check the cube name, open BI Development Studio -> File -> Open Analysis Services Database: this will connect to the database; open the cube editor and check (in the properties grid) what the cube name is. Or you can use SQL Management Studio and bring up the cube Properties dialog.

If the cube was renamed indeed from 'Stage' to 'Perspective 1', you can track what happened (who changed what) if you had the FlighRecorder tracing enabled (that logs all the commands sent to server, but usually it's not on for performance reasons).

Adrian

|||

Adrian,

I checked out the properties and the name of the cube is still "Stage".

When I open the cube Browser in BIDS I can chose either Stage or Perspective. However, when I want to build a new report in Reporting Serivces (sorry I forgot to mention that) I only get the choices of Perspective or Perspective 1.

In RS, it was always Stage or Perspective and after I did the processing it changed to Perspective or Perspective 1.

Any ideas of where I should look? I have no idea if I had the recorder thing on to trace this. It is only on my laptop for development.

Thank you for the help.

-Gumbatman

Cube Name Changed After Processing (but I didn''t do anything)

Hello,

I have a cube that has been working fine for a while. Then I re-ran the SSIS to bring in refreshed data (which I've done many times before) and reprocessed the cube. I never changed the name of the cube or anything like that (at least on purpose).

Now when I open SSRS to run a report, it says that it cannot find the cube. I do have a Perspective in there, but I wasn't using it. Previously it had the cube's name Stage and the perspective's name Perspective. Now I see Perspective and Perspective 1.

Any idea what could have caused this and what I can do to change it back?

Thank you.

-Gumbatman

Hi,

Re-processing the cube will not rename the cube, something else should have happened.

To double check the cube name, open BI Development Studio -> File -> Open Analysis Services Database: this will connect to the database; open the cube editor and check (in the properties grid) what the cube name is. Or you can use SQL Management Studio and bring up the cube Properties dialog.

If the cube was renamed indeed from 'Stage' to 'Perspective 1', you can track what happened (who changed what) if you had the FlighRecorder tracing enabled (that logs all the commands sent to server, but usually it's not on for performance reasons).

Adrian

|||

Adrian,

I checked out the properties and the name of the cube is still "Stage".

When I open the cube Browser in BIDS I can chose either Stage or Perspective. However, when I want to build a new report in Reporting Serivces (sorry I forgot to mention that) I only get the choices of Perspective or Perspective 1.

In RS, it was always Stage or Perspective and after I did the processing it changed to Perspective or Perspective 1.

Any ideas of where I should look? I have no idea if I had the recorder thing on to trace this. It is only on my laptop for development.

Thank you for the help.

-Gumbatman

Cube Model

After generating a Cube Model (model from an OLAP source) from either Reporting Services or SSMS - is there any way to modify the model and re-deploy? It appears there is not - as there are ways for OLTP data sources.
This guy has a solution:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/brendan.tompkins/archive/2007/02/28/SQL-2005-Report-Models-from-an-Analysis-Server-OLAP-Cube.aspx
"Joe" <hortoristic@.gmail.dot.com> wrote in message news:61D3B225-6B31-4FE3-8C8F-D9330DB04EE9@.microsoft.com...
After generating a Cube Model (model from an OLAP source) from either Reporting Services or SSMS - is there any way to modify the model and re-deploy? It appears there is not - as there are ways for OLTP data sources.

Cube Model

After generating a Cube Model (model from an OLAP source) from either Report
ing Services or SSMS - is there any way to modify the model and re-deploy?
It appears there is not - as there are ways for OLTP data sources.This guy has a solution:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/brendan...-OLAP-Cube.aspx
"Joe" <hortoristic@.gmail.dot.com> wrote in message news:61D3B225-6B31-4FE3-8
C8F-D9330DB04EE9@.microsoft.com...
After generating a Cube Model (model from an OLAP source) from either Report
ing Services or SSMS - is there any way to modify the model and re-deploy?
It appears there is not - as there are ways for OLTP data sources.

Cube migration from AS2000 to AS2005

I have problem migrating the cube from AS2000 to AS2005. I am using the migrationwizard.exe to migrate the cube.

I have entered the SQL Server 2000 Analysis services source server and SQL 2005 AS destination server. When i click enter i get this message:

Source server: The 'MSOLAP.2' provider is not registered on the local machine.

I am unable to proceed further. I would appreciate if someone can help me.

Thanks.

You are not able to connect to AS 2000. Try if you can access 2000 version of cube from the same machine in which you are running migrationwizard.|||

Thanks for your reply.

Do you mean connecting AS2000 cube from SQL 2005 management studio? I have tried this and I get the message

No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it (system).

I have no problem connecting AS2000 cubes on Analysis Manager.

Please let me know how to resolve this. Thanks again.

|||

Not very sure It may have to do with MSOLAP version. Check

MSOLAP80.DLL or MSOLAP90.DLL must exist in C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Ole DB directory. Check if its in system path.

|||Yes. Both MSOLAP80.Dll and MSOLAP90.Dll exists on the Ole DB directory.|||Just another guess MSOLAP80.Dll file might be bad. Try reinstall or copy from other machine.|||Dear Gopal!

Have you succeeded in the AS2000 to AS2005 migration? I'm suffering from the same problem you described and don't know what to do next.

Do you have a solution?
Thanks in advance
|||

SQL Management Studio 2005 will indeed not connect to AS2000. You will need to use Analysis Manager for that (do you have it on the machine where you run Migration Wizard ?)

The error message indicates you have a faulty install for DSO or one of it's components (Migration Wizard uses DSO to connect to the AS2000 server, to read the meta-data and transfer it to the AS2005 server). Try to re-install DSO and the msolap provider from AS2000.

On the machine running the Migration Wizard, what is the file version for msmddo80.dll (in "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DSO") ?

If re-installing DSO from AS2000 doesn't work or doesn't fix the problem, re-run the SQL 2005 Setup and install the 'Backward Compatibility' components (that will install DSO version 8.5).

Cube migration from AS2000 to AS2005

I have problem migrating the cube from AS2000 to AS2005. I am using the migrationwizard.exe to migrate the cube.

I have entered the SQL Server 2000 Analysis services source server and SQL 2005 AS destination server. When i click enter i get this message:

Source server: The 'MSOLAP.2' provider is not registered on the local machine.

I am unable to proceed further. I would appreciate if someone can help me.

Thanks.

You are not able to connect to AS 2000. Try if you can access 2000 version of cube from the same machine in which you are running migrationwizard.|||

Thanks for your reply.

Do you mean connecting AS2000 cube from SQL 2005 management studio? I have tried this and I get the message

No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it (system).

I have no problem connecting AS2000 cubes on Analysis Manager.

Please let me know how to resolve this. Thanks again.

|||

Not very sure It may have to do with MSOLAP version. Check

MSOLAP80.DLL or MSOLAP90.DLL must exist in C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Ole DB directory. Check if its in system path.

|||Yes. Both MSOLAP80.Dll and MSOLAP90.Dll exists on the Ole DB directory.|||Just another guess MSOLAP80.Dll file might be bad. Try reinstall or copy from other machine.|||Dear Gopal!

Have you succeeded in the AS2000 to AS2005 migration? I'm suffering from the same problem you described and don't know what to do next.

Do you have a solution?
Thanks in advance
|||

SQL Management Studio 2005 will indeed not connect to AS2000. You will need to use Analysis Manager for that (do you have it on the machine where you run Migration Wizard ?)

The error message indicates you have a faulty install for DSO or one of it's components (Migration Wizard uses DSO to connect to the AS2000 server, to read the meta-data and transfer it to the AS2005 server). Try to re-install DSO and the msolap provider from AS2000.

On the machine running the Migration Wizard, what is the file version for msmddo80.dll (in "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DSO") ?

If re-installing DSO from AS2000 doesn't work or doesn't fix the problem, re-run the SQL 2005 Setup and install the 'Backward Compatibility' components (that will install DSO version 8.5).

Cube Metadata - is AMO the best option

I want to extract the cube metadata I have into a relational repository. Should I be using AMO, or is there a simpler way?

Many thanks

AMO is an option. You could also use the XML definition of the cube directly and perhaps look into using SSIS's XML functionlity for persisting it to your database.

Cube meta data on a web page

How do I access AS database meta data (cubes + properties) from an
asp.net page?
Hans
There are several approaches you could use.
If you are looking for documentation, then nightly you could run the OLAP
Scribe utility (which generates a .doc file) -- and the link to the .doc
file from your asp.net application. That will give you pretty extensive
documentation.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en
If all you want is populate a list, then your asp.net application can use
OLAP Schema Rowsets, see Books On line for information on the topic.
As a third approach, if you know the database you want to connect to, then
you could use the Catalog object which is exposed via ADOMD.NET (see the
ADOMD.NET documentation on how to do that).
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en
Hope that helps.
Dave Wickert [MSFT]
dwickert@.online.microsoft.com
Program Manager
BI SystemsTeam
SQL BI Product Unit (Analysis Services)
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"hansiman" <han@.sen.se> wrote in message
news:eq7au0hopksiglbe7s893v1uu3a3n1f5ui@.4ax.com...
> How do I access AS database meta data (cubes + properties) from an
> asp.net page?
> Hans

Cube meta data on a web page

How do I access AS database meta data (cubes + properties) from an
asp.net page?
HansThere are several approaches you could use.
If you are looking for documentation, then nightly you could run the OLAP
Scribe utility (which generates a .doc file) -- and the link to the .doc
file from your asp.net application. That will give you pretty extensive
documentation.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&DisplayLang=en
If all you want is populate a list, then your asp.net application can use
OLAP Schema Rowsets, see Books On line for information on the topic.
As a third approach, if you know the database you want to connect to, then
you could use the Catalog object which is exposed via ADOMD.NET (see the
ADOMD.NET documentation on how to do that).
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&DisplayLang=en
Hope that helps.
--
Dave Wickert [MSFT]
dwickert@.online.microsoft.com
Program Manager
BI SystemsTeam
SQL BI Product Unit (Analysis Services)
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"hansiman" <han@.sen.se> wrote in message
news:eq7au0hopksiglbe7s893v1uu3a3n1f5ui@.
4ax.com...
> How do I access AS database meta data (cubes + properties) from an
> asp.net page?
> Hans

Cube members not accurate

What could gone wrong when the memebers of a dimension after deployment is not accurrate as the actual records in the Dim table? Initially i hit an error when changing the actual Dim table and Fact table ( by the way i am changing the primary foreign key values.) Then i ecounter errors when trying to process the cube again. Seeing this:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922673 , I recreate the data source and no errors after the deployment 9 hurray). But the new records added in the Dim is not reflected in the memebers of the cube :(

I guess the initial error that I get is becausethe Dim table is not updated in thefirst place causing the Fact table to have keys not found in Dim. But my question is why is it theDim not updated?

Thanks.

Regards

Alu

Go back try processing your dimension using standard processing options.

If you instruct Analysis Server to hide problems it finds during dimension processing, you never going to find problems you have in your data. The instructions in the KB article only let you get by if you are just in the hurry to get your cube somehow processed. You should really try and resolve all the problems with relational data to see the correct dimension structure and correct measure totals. Hiding processing errors is quite dangerous.

Edward Melomed.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

cube measures on rows in reporting services....

Is there anyway for reporting services to display measures on rows instead
of columns as in Excel?
I'm trying to format my data in rows but this doesn't seems possible in
reporting services... does anyone has any examples of how this can be done?Create a shared datasource to Foodmart 200 and try this RDL. HEre is a sample
report that i created with measures on rows.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Report
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2003/10/reportdefinition"
xmlns:rd="">http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLServer/reporting/reportdesigner">
<RightMargin>1in</RightMargin>
<Body>
<ReportItems>
<Textbox Name="textbox1">
<Style>
<PaddingLeft>2pt</PaddingLeft>
<FontFamily>Times New Roman</FontFamily>
<BackgroundColor>Brown</BackgroundColor>
<BorderWidth>
<Bottom>3pt</Bottom>
</BorderWidth>
<BorderColor>
<Bottom>Black</Bottom>
</BorderColor>
<BorderStyle>
<Bottom>Solid</Bottom>
</BorderStyle>
<FontSize>18pt</FontSize>
<TextAlign>Center</TextAlign>
<Color>White</Color>
<PaddingBottom>2pt</PaddingBottom>
<PaddingTop>2pt</PaddingTop>
<PaddingRight>2pt</PaddingRight>
<FontWeight>700</FontWeight>
</Style>
<ZIndex>1</ZIndex>
<rd:DefaultName>textbox1</rd:DefaultName>
<Height>0.33in</Height>
<CanGrow>true</CanGrow>
<Value>Report20</Value>
</Textbox>
<Matrix Name="matrix1">
<Corner>
<ReportItems>
<Textbox Name="textbox4">
<Style>
<PaddingLeft>2pt</PaddingLeft>
<PaddingBottom>2pt</PaddingBottom>
<PaddingTop>2pt</PaddingTop>
<PaddingRight>2pt</PaddingRight>
</Style>
<ZIndex>5</ZIndex>
<rd:DefaultName>textbox4</rd:DefaultName>
<CanGrow>true</CanGrow>
<Value />
</Textbox>
</ReportItems>
</Corner>
<Height>0.72in</Height>
<Style />
<MatrixRows>
<MatrixRow>
<MatrixCells>
<MatrixCell>
<ReportItems>
<Textbox Name="textbox2">
<Style>
<PaddingLeft>2pt</PaddingLeft>
<PaddingBottom>2pt</PaddingBottom>
<PaddingTop>2pt</PaddingTop>
<PaddingRight>2pt</PaddingRight>
</Style>
<ZIndex>2</ZIndex>
<rd:DefaultName>textbox2</rd:DefaultName>
<CanGrow>true</CanGrow>
<Value>=First(Fields!Measures_Unit_Sales.Value)</Value>
</Textbox>
</ReportItems>
</MatrixCell>
</MatrixCells>
<Height>0.24in</Height>
</MatrixRow>
<MatrixRow>
<MatrixCells>
<MatrixCell>
<ReportItems>
<Textbox Name="textbox3">
<Style>
<PaddingLeft>2pt</PaddingLeft>
<PaddingBottom>2pt</PaddingBottom>
<PaddingTop>2pt</PaddingTop>
<PaddingRight>2pt</PaddingRight>
</Style>
<rd:DefaultName>textbox3</rd:DefaultName>
<CanGrow>true</CanGrow>
<Value>=First(Fields!Measures_Profit.Value)</Value>
</Textbox>
</ReportItems>
</MatrixCell>
</MatrixCells>
<Height>0.24in</Height>
</MatrixRow>
</MatrixRows>
<MatrixColumns>
<MatrixColumn>
<Width>1in</Width>
</MatrixColumn>
</MatrixColumns>
<DataSetName>FoodMart_2000</DataSetName>
<ColumnGroupings>
<ColumnGrouping>
<DynamicColumns>
<Grouping Name="matrix1_Customers_Country">
<GroupExpressions>
<GroupExpression>=Fields!Customers_Country.Value</GroupExpression>
</GroupExpressions>
</Grouping>
<Sorting>
<SortBy>
<SortExpression>=Fields!Customers_Country.Value</SortExpression>
<Direction>Ascending</Direction>
</SortBy>
</Sorting>
<ReportItems>
<Textbox Name="Customers_Country">
<Style>
<PaddingLeft>2pt</PaddingLeft>
<FontFamily>Times New Roman</FontFamily>
<FontSize>12pt</FontSize>
<Color>DarkRed</Color>
<PaddingBottom>2pt</PaddingBottom>
<PaddingTop>2pt</PaddingTop>
<PaddingRight>2pt</PaddingRight>
<FontWeight>700</FontWeight>
</Style>
<ZIndex>4</ZIndex>
<rd:DefaultName>Customers_Country</rd:DefaultName>
<CanGrow>true</CanGrow>
<Value>=Fields!Customers_Country.Value</Value>
</Textbox>
</ReportItems>
</DynamicColumns>
<Height>0.24in</Height>
</ColumnGrouping>
</ColumnGroupings>
<Width>2in</Width>
<Top>0.33in</Top>
<RowGroupings>
<RowGrouping>
<Width>1in</Width>
<StaticRows>
<StaticRow>
<ReportItems>
<Textbox Name="textbox7">
<Style>
<PaddingLeft>2pt</PaddingLeft>
<FontFamily>Times New Roman</FontFamily>
<FontSize>12pt</FontSize>
<Color>DarkRed</Color>
<PaddingBottom>2pt</PaddingBottom>
<PaddingTop>2pt</PaddingTop>
<PaddingRight>2pt</PaddingRight>
<FontWeight>700</FontWeight>
</Style>
<ZIndex>3</ZIndex>
<rd:DefaultName>textbox7</rd:DefaultName>
<CanGrow>true</CanGrow>
<Value>Units</Value>
</Textbox>
</ReportItems>
</StaticRow>
<StaticRow>
<ReportItems>
<Textbox Name="textbox8">
<Style>
<PaddingLeft>2pt</PaddingLeft>
<FontFamily>Times New Roman</FontFamily>
<FontSize>12pt</FontSize>
<Color>DarkRed</Color>
<PaddingBottom>2pt</PaddingBottom>
<PaddingTop>2pt</PaddingTop>
<PaddingRight>2pt</PaddingRight>
<FontWeight>700</FontWeight>
</Style>
<ZIndex>1</ZIndex>
<rd:DefaultName>textbox8</rd:DefaultName>
<CanGrow>true</CanGrow>
<Value>Profit</Value>
</Textbox>
</ReportItems>
</StaticRow>
</StaticRows>
</RowGrouping>
</RowGroupings>
</Matrix>
</ReportItems>
<Style />
<Height>2.25in</Height>
</Body>
<TopMargin>1in</TopMargin>
<DataSources>
<DataSource Name="FoodMart 2000">
<DataSourceReference>FoodMart 2000</DataSourceReference>
</DataSource>
</DataSources>
<Width>5in</Width>
<DataSets>
<DataSet Name="FoodMart_2000">
<Fields>
<Field Name="Customers_Country">
<DataField>[Customers].[Country].[MEMBER_CAPTION]</DataField>
<rd:TypeName>System.String</rd:TypeName>
</Field>
<Field Name="Measures_Unit_Sales">
<DataField>[Measures].[Unit Sales]</DataField>
<rd:TypeName>System.Object</rd:TypeName>
</Field>
<Field Name="Measures_Profit">
<DataField>[Measures].[Profit]</DataField>
<rd:TypeName>System.Object</rd:TypeName>
</Field>
</Fields>
<Query>
<DataSourceName>FoodMart 2000</DataSourceName>
<CommandText>select
{{[Customers].[Country].Members}}on rows,
{ [Measures].[Unit Sales],[Measures].[Profit]} on columns
from Sales</CommandText>
</Query>
</DataSet>
</DataSets>
<LeftMargin>1in</LeftMargin>
<rd:SnapToGrid>true</rd:SnapToGrid>
<rd:DrawGrid>true</rd:DrawGrid>
<BottomMargin>1in</BottomMargin>
<Language>en-US</Language>
</Report>
"Nestor" wrote:
> Is there anyway for reporting services to display measures on rows instead
> of columns as in Excel?
> I'm trying to format my data in rows but this doesn't seems possible in
> reporting services... does anyone has any examples of how this can be done?
>
>

cube measure only displays one total

I did something to my cube where it is only displaying a much smaller value for

the sales amount measure than it should.

I have a project with two dimensions and one measure.

After deploying the cube i browsed it and pulled the sales amount into the

details field area. normally i should end up with some 400 + million in dollars instead i get 90+ thousand. It seems as if the cube is not processing fully or the browser tab is somehow being filtered. I checked and there is nothing in the subcube or any other field.

Can someone direct me on how best to debug this?

thanks

I found the problem and thought I would share what I did.

I'm surprised it works this way maybe it is a bug. Perhaps the pros here could add some info to this.

here is what I did.

I have a field called "Rate" which is multiplied by the "Qty" to come up the "Sales Amount" measure. This is done in the DSV as a "Named Calculation" in the measures table.

This same table is also used as a dimension table. In here i considered the "Rate" field to be non-Aggregatable or (IsAggregatable = false). Since i would never add up the rates for a total.

Apparently SSAS does not like this and hence things got really messed up. Switching it back to (IsAggregatable = true) fixed everything.

Hopefully my hair will grow back soon.

cube limit

Hi all,

I am new to SSAS with SQL2005SP2. Currently, I have a fact table with almost 10 million records. In this table, I have at least 27 fields which store monthly data for the past 27 months along with some other fields. At first, I plan to make those 27 fields to one field and add another field like period to capture the year and month information so I can link to my time dimension table. Of course, this makes the new table with 270 million record counts. It took forever to process the cube. If I add more dimenstions into this cube, I got an error msg saying it exceed the limits. I am trying to find out the limit but did not get anywhere. Does anyone know the max dimensions is allowed in a cube or the max intersection can be created for a cube?

wenchi

did you patrition your cube?

what exactly error message you have got?

how many dimensions (attribute hierarchies) has the cube?

|||

I think the theoretical limit is 2 billion attributes in a cube. If you could answer Vladimir's questions we might be able to help identify your issue.

cube limit

Hi all,

I am new to SSAS with SQL2005SP2. Currently, I have a fact table with almost 10 million records. In this table, I have at least 27 fields which store monthly data for the past 27 months along with some other fields. At first, I plan to make those 27 fields to one field and add another field like period to capture the year and month information so I can link to my time dimension table. Of course, this makes the new table with 270 million record counts. It took forever to process the cube. If I add more dimenstions into this cube, I got an error msg saying it exceed the limits. I am trying to find out the limit but did not get anywhere. Does anyone know the max dimensions is allowed in a cube or the max intersection can be created for a cube?

wenchi

did you patrition your cube?

what exactly error message you have got?

how many dimensions (attribute hierarchies) has the cube?

|||

I think the theoretical limit is 2 billion attributes in a cube. If you could answer Vladimir's questions we might be able to help identify your issue.

Cube insteadof warehouse

is cube a Replacement for data warehouse in sql server 2005?
Message posted via droptable.com
http://www.droptable.com/Uwe/Forums...house/200512/1
Hello Maryam,
Although AS2005 is very powerful, it will not solve issues like data
integration, complex business logic, or even transforming data into a
usable format, which are common problems for data warehouses.
AS2005 does have some capabilities in solving complex business logic
using data source views, but for data consolidation from different data
sources I would always go for a data warehouse.
AS2005 does go a long way to creating cubes against relational data
sources. But if these data sources are not in a format you desire then
you may want to look at a data warehouse to solve those problems.
Hope it helps,
Myles Matheson
Data Warehouse Architect
http://bi-on-sql-server.blogspot.com/

Cube insteadof warehouse

is cube a Replacement for data warehouse in sql server 2005?
Message posted via droptable.com
http://www.droptable.com/Uwe/Forum...ehouse/200512/1Hello Maryam,
Although AS2005 is very powerful, it will not solve issues like data
integration, complex business logic, or even transforming data into a
usable format, which are common problems for data warehouses.
AS2005 does have some capabilities in solving complex business logic
using data source views, but for data consolidation from different data
sources I would always go for a data warehouse.
AS2005 does go a long way to creating cubes against relational data
sources. But if these data sources are not in a format you desire then
you may want to look at a data warehouse to solve those problems.
Hope it helps,
Myles Matheson
Data Warehouse Architect
http://bi-on-sql-server.blogspot.com/

Cube installation without VS

Hi!
I created a cube and I want to give it to several persons for the installation on their SQL Server 2005. Is it possible to create something like an installation package (similar to the deployment manifest in SSIS)?
Thanks for any help!
No, but you can script out the database as an XMLA script and then execute it on another server. To create the script, use SQL Management Studio and right-click on the Analysis Services object. One of the options should be Script \ Create.

There are several ways to execute the XMLA script on the remote server. One way would be to enter it as a SQL Agent Job. One of the command types is Analysis Services DDL script. Another way would be to exeute it via an SSIS package. In fact you could put the XMLA script right in the SSIS package and then deploy the package.

One of the features which unfortunately was a command-line utility to execute a XMLA script. We are trying to get it released in one of the web release of the Samples.msi later next year.

Hope that helps.

_-_-_ Dave|||That's exactly what I need. Thanks alot!

Cube History

I am trying to build a cube to monitor the sales performance. My measure is the sale amount. My dimensions include 1) Time 2) Sale hierarchy (salesman, sales office, region), and 3) Product Line. The problem I have is that when the salesman move from one office to another, the sales occured before this movement should continue to be credited to the old office. Only sales happen after the movement should be credited to the new office.
How should I implement the cube to achieve this effectively? We have more that 40,000 sales, about 500 offices, in the company to monitor. So I don't think keeping a copy of the sales hierarchy whenever there is a change is feasible.

Any inputs will be highly appreciated!

Thanks.You will need to Consider creating another dim for salesman.

you apear to need to collect when an employee was at a particular site for a particular sale so you will have to add a location value to each ORDER and not rely on the salesman's location. it has to be tied to the sale itself so the location attribute should be derived for the order

if this is a seldom problem you may want to make your cube holap (part relational and part cube)instead of pure olap and then you can use the drill down feature for a particular sale or set of sales to find the distinction between sites.|||Thank you very much for the information. I can see how that will fix the problem. However, I am not sure how to make the drilldown work using holap as you have suggested. Could you please elaborate it a bit about your last paragraph? Thanks. Sorry, I am new in the DWH field...|||check out those topics in BOL for analysis services
i will try to reply later

cube has been updated by the server, data is now obsolete

Client issues query which sends out individual requests to the 2 OLAP servers that are load balanced. The client evaluates the versions of the returned record sets to ensure the consist data being returned for one single query. Otherwise, this error will be seen:

The cube has been updated by the server the data is now obsolete.

These servers sit behind a cisco 11506 CSS with load balancing based on balance type: least busy server, also persistence based on cookies.

My developer says this worked fine for a long time then just 'started happening'.

any suggestions are appreciated.Any infomational messsage or error on SQL error log?|||I'll see if there are any other associated messages or logs and post them.

Cube from denormalized table: Several dimensions vs. one dimension with several attributes

Hi,

I want to build a cube in AS2005 from a denormalized table.

The table consists of facts from the last three years, with all interesting attributes (about 12) in a seperate column of this table.

Actulally this attributes would form three dimensions (semantically).

I thought of two different approaches to structure the cube:

1. Building a separate dimension for each attribute

or

2. Building three dimensions (or to be more radical : one dimension) that contains all attributes

In my understanding, with the new concept of attribute based hierarchies, both variants should have the same effect on aggregations, performance and so on.

Only difference would the structure shown to the user .

Is this right?

Does autoexist have any influence on the both design variants?

It seems like modeling each attribute as a separate dimension would be a lot easier to use for analysis, right?|||

That is entirely not so.

When designing your model, you should group attributes into dimensions. For instance if you have geographical data , like Country, State, City, you should build a single dimension and create hierarchy.

Analysis Services although allows you to create model from almost any type of schema, you should try to follow the relationships between entities in relational data. That is you should design multideimensional model as if data as normalized as possible.

Having 3 dimensions with multiple attributes sounds like better idea.

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

|||

Thank you Edward, for your reply.

That is what I supposed to do, but:

As I mentioned, the table contains facts from several years. Within this time, there are dimenions, in which some attributes changed. (Refential integrity in the denormalized table is destroyed)

So when I'm trying to process a dimension with several attributes directly on the table, I get the "key duplicate" error from the processing engine.

To build a model with 3 dimension contailing several attributes woud lead to a reverse design of a slow changing dimemsion, with surrogate key for each attribute combination and timestamp etc......

This is what I wanted to avoid if possible! So I thought of building a dimension form every single attribute in the table. Then historical changes of attributes stay related to the facts correctly.

As I found in another whitepaper, a dimension in ass2005 is nothing more than a logical container for attribute dimensions.--> Is this right ?

So what would be the advantages grouping attributes to dimensions.

As I am quite new to OLAP and MDX I haven't an overview on the technology by now. Are there any disadvantages when later querying the cube? (Restrictions, performance)

Thanks,

Keme

|||

The problem with creating dimension per attribute would come when your users will try to analyze the data , they run into problems trying to make sence out of the numbers.

You might be saving yourself some time by treating attributes as separate, but if they are logically related, your users will tell you that numbers are wrong. You'd have to come back and build hierarchies and work out through processing errors. Analysis Services are very good pointing out inconsistencies in data.

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Cube drill-through problem

Hello everyone,
I am building a cube that contains a single date dimension. The problem
is, the business I am building this cube for has a fiscal year that starts
on November 1. When I create the date dimension, I am prompted for the
start date of the year. If I select the default value (Jan 1), everything
works fine. If I choose Nov 1 instead, then I get this error message when
I drill through the data:
Data source provider error: Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'from';
42000.
I have gone through all the usual steps of saving, designing storage, and
reprocessing the cube, but it still does not work. I even deleted the cube
and created it from scratch. How can I make this work?
--== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==--
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--Hello,
I learned the drill through failed with the following syntax error:
"Data source provider error: Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'from';
42000."
Based on my research, this is a known issue of OLE DB for SQL Server
provider, If the start date of the year for a time dimension is not January
1st, Analysis Services uses a case statement to determine the year,
quarter, month, etc for each member of the dimension and fact table which
uses a date field. When Analysis Services builds the drill through query it
must also include the case statement as part of the query. The OLE DB for
SQL Server provider is not able to handle the complexity of the SQL
statement generated for the drill-through request. Please try to use ODBC
for SQL Server driver.
I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Regards,
Michael Shao
Microsoft Online Partner Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

Cube documentation

Hello everyone,

I'd like to ask for your personal experience with documenting cubes. Is out there any good tool for that, something as Olapscribe for 2000, latest PowerDesigner or any other commercial tool available? It would be good to have something in BIDS helper also...

Thanks!

Radim

Hello! I have seen this tool http://www.bidocumenter.com/Public/CompareProducts.aspx and tried it.

It is not that good for Analysis Services 2005 documentation though. Even with this tool you will need to do additional work.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

|||You could try BI Dcoumenter, it produces an HTML version of the 2005 cubes or a complied HTML. Quite clever, except the diagrams are a little annoying as you need to recreate them, each time you take a new version of the database.|||Yes, I've seen that one also. I'll try the other tools listed on Compare page. I didn't take any deep look, but it seems a bit technical to me. I need something that normal user could look into and check what cubes/dimension/attributes do we have and what is the purpose of them.

Radim Hampel

Cube dimensions

How many dimensions can a cube have in a datawarehouse?You can have infinite dimension tables in a warehouse but I believe the max is 128 for a single cube.However, you should never have that many in one cube.

HTH|||Thank u for that answer. I've been confused all day!

cube design/MDX for Product Owns vs does not Own

I would really appreciate if you could give us your input for following design, I am having hard time to visualize the cube design.

I have a fact table and dimension tables as follows with rows.

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Fact_ProductOwnership](
[OrgID] [int] NULL,
[SegmentID] [int] NULL,
[SubSegmentID] [int] NULL,
[ProductID] [int] NOT NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

OrgID SegmentID SubSegmentID ProductID 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 6 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 6 3 1 1 1 3 1 1 3 3 1 1 5

Segment table rows

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Segment](
[ID] [int] NULL,
[SegmentName] [varchar](20) NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

ID SegmentName

1 Enterprize

2 Small Business

SubgSegment table and Rows

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[SubSegment](
[ID] [int] NULL,
[SubSegmentName] [varchar](20) NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

ID SubSegmentName

1 Enterprize

2 Small Business

Product table and Rows

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Products](
[ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[ProductDesc] [varchar](20) NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

ID ProductDesc

1 Access_Yes

2 Access_No

3 Excel_Yes

4 Excel_No

5 SqlServer_Yes

6 SqlServer_No

What I would like achieve from above design is to get the list orgs for the following scenarios

1) Show the companies who owns Access_Yes & Excel_No

Above should display 2 orgs (1 and 2 qualify for this scenario)

2) Show the companies who owns SqlServer_yes & SqlServer_Ye

Above query should display 0 orgs(no org qualifies)

Could you please suggest me thtat is my above design wrong or is it too hard to ahieve from cube? Is there any alogorithm this can solve above problem ?

I would really appreciate if you could answer to above problem ?

You can design your cube with dimensions for Org and Product (and optionally Segment and SubSegment) and then create a row count measure. Then you would query for Orgs and use NONEMPTYCROSSJOIN to filter by products.

Something like:

SELECT NONEMPTYCROSSJOIN(NONEMPTYCROSSJOIN([Org].Members, {[Product].[Access_Yes]}, 1) {[Product].[Excel_No], 1) ON COLUMNS,

{} ON ROWS

FROM [MyCube]

cube design question (beginner)

Hi,

Let's say that i have a fact table with sales and one time dimension and i want to display the count of sales over the bands of sales; something like this:

0-750 750-1000 1000-1250

2004 1 12 5

2005 0 9 11

2006 2 13 40

Any sugestion ?

i suggest you create a dimension of this fact table, and create an attribute with the sales measure and use the DiscretizationBucketCount and DiscretizationMethod to configure the bands.

hope this helps

Cube design question

I have a Fact table which stores details about each revision made on the document.

There is a one to many relationship between a document and the revisions

I need to display information based on the last revision made by a particular UserType.

How do I select records from the fact table based on a particular UserType and the maximum revision number for that usertype?

Hi Reena,

Are you using AS 2000 or AS 2005?

So you have RevisionFact table and also Dim_Dt, Dim_UserType, Dim_Users, Dim_Doc etc. and you store every revisions in fact table along with UserTypeID, Date_ID, Doc_ID, and User_ID.

It would be easy if you tell what measures you store in fact table. You can use "Count" Aggregate Function in measure and query using UserType , Date and measure count on the field you store for each revisions in fact table.

-Ashok

|||

I am using AS 2005

I need to display the count of documents that were written within the target time as well as the count of documents that were not written within the target time set for each user.

The user list has to be displayed along the rows and the count of documents along the columns ( 2 columns)

I have measures that would display time taken to write a document and target time for the document.

Using COUNT function I can get the count of documents written by a user.

But how do I break that count up into two separate columns displaying number of documents written within target time and number of documents written outside target time - for each user?

|||

There are a few ways you could do this, but here's one suggestion. Its a very simple pattern which csn be used again and again for similar problems.

You have a table or view with the time taken and target time in as columns.

Add another column (this is easier if you have a view) and define it as:

case when TimeTaken>TargetTime then 0 else 1 end as TargetMetId

create a lookup table as TargetMet with values

0,"Target Not Met"

1,"Target Met"

You can then link the 2 together and create a nice TargetMet Dimension. This will give you all of the counts you require.

You can expand this by changing the case statment, and building a lookup table like this

1,"Finished Same Day"

2,"Finished Early"

3,"On Time"

4,"A bit late"

5,"Do they still work here?"

etc

|||Thanks for the reply.

cube design issue

Hi.

I have two modules that have several dimensions in common but at the same time each has its own dimensions. is it best to design 2 cubes or one combining both?

thanks in advance

Christina

It really depends ;)

In many cases one will find useful to create a single cube with 2 measure groups.

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Cube design e best client tool to access olap database

Hi all,

My doubt is about the best client tool to use for access cube olap. Currently i use excel for some tests but when expand until third ou fourth level the query delays a time not acceptable many times hanging the virtual server.

Another doubt is about cube design the bahavor described above is normal?

Is my server i have a fact table with 211.000 rows, 17 columns (with two calculations columns) and 15 dimension tables ( I think tha is a small database). This tables are organized in a starschema inside a SQL Server 2005 database. The cube 15 dimensions (one with two hierarquies) and with five partitions based in the hierarquies.

Virtual Server Configuration:

512MB Physical Memory.

CPU Intel Core Centrino 1.66GHz

Windows 2003 SP1

SQLServer 2005 SP2

Apologies about my english.

Thanks

Hi!

It is a little bit hard to tell without knowing more about your cube. Have you designed proper attribute relationsships and aggregations? You can download the performance guide for AS2005 pointed to a the top of this group.

Next, I think that a cube of that size and that many dimensions will require more memory than 512 MB. I also run AS2005 on my laptop but not as a virtual server(because it is slower) and I have 2 GB of physical memory.

The problem in Excel might be related to the physical limits of you machine. To do a real test of Excels limits you should run it from a workstation without any server software installed. In that case 512 MB can be enough even if most workstations today have at least 1 GB RAM installed.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

Cube Design - Number Max of Dimensions

Hi all,

Some cubes into my project have been designed containing 11 dimensions ? Is there a number max of dimensions? The performances look fine so far but I was wondering if it will be a good idea to split these cubes to have a limited number of dimension per cube.

Thanks a lot for your support

Juan

I think you're a long way off hitting the maximum:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365363.

The only thing you need to look out for when you start adding lots of dimensions to a cube is that aggregation design will take longer and the you're less likely to get good results using the Storage Design Wizard alone - you'll probably need to do Usage Based Optimisation to get the aggregation design you really need. It's also gradually emerging that putting all your data in one cube with multiple measure groups might not be the most efficient way of designing your cubes - see
http://prologika.com/CS/blogs/blog/archive/2006/06/28/1331.aspx

HTH,

Chris

|||

Chris,

Many Thanks for your feedback.

The tests of performance (processing of cubes) I have made meet our requirements.

Do you think that there will be an impact in the restitution of these cubes (with a lot of dimensions) via Excel (add-in) ?

Does the cube design with a lot of dimensions have an impact in the restitution performances ?

Thanks again.

Juan

|||

What do you mean by 'restitution', sorry? Do you mean query performance? If so, no there's no reason why a cube with many dimensions should perform worse than a cube with few dimensions, although as I said you need to be more careful with your aggregation design when you have many dimensions in order to get good performance.

Chris

|||

Sorry for my english...

I meant 'browse' the cube thanks to Excel (Add_in).

My tests of performance have been done to measure :

- performance to process cubes

- performance to access cubes with Excel

If I understood well, the design has a direct impact in the processing of the cube but not in the browsing of the cube.

Hope to be clearer...

Cheers

Juan

|||

Well, what I was trying to say was that adding dimensions to the cube doesn't necessarily cause worse query performance so long as you pay attention to your aggregation design. But it would not be true to say that cube design in general has no effect on query performance - it does.

Chris

Cube Design

Can two or more sets of 'non- related' tables be combine and form a cube? Currently I have only a query from the business domain and a cube was designed base on the query. If there are more unrelated queries coming up, should I add on to the same data source view or just add new data source view and new cube? Which is recommended?

Can I say one report model template (adhoc reporting) can only consist of one cube or possible to have many cubes?

Regards

Goh

Hello. By 'non-related tables' you mean that the result set of the queries do not share keys over their different source systems? Do the columns have the same type of information?

The standard solution for this is to build a data warehouse to create one version of the "truth" in the business. You do not load "information silos" or fragmented information into the same cube. In the data warehouse you can also keep history of changes in the source systems and be able trace what have happened.

If you, for some reason, cannot build a DW your best approach is to build separate cubes and separate dimensions for each query/source.

You can build a view and use TSQL UNION to build a general view of each source and create one cube on top of that. The problem with this approach is that in sales you must be sure that there are no internal transactions between each source. If so, your sales data will overestimate sales.

My recommendation is to build a DW and solve the problem with non-related tables there.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

Cube deployment issue SSAS 2005

Hello all,

I got an issue with deploying my cube. I am new to SSAS 2005, and I cannot find the option to define which account to use with deploying. I managed to choose the server for deployment, but strangely enough, no user can be selected, so when it deploys, it throws an error stating the standard windows login isn't valid (wich is correct, but I do not want to use standard windows login).And why do I have to use a local windows user account? Why can't the account from my server?|||The only thing I can find wich is remotely connected with this problem is the following:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms166576.aspx

But nothing about a login or something like that.
Please help, I am totally clueless.|||From your description it is not clear to me what exactly you are doing and what is happening. Can you please decsribe it in more detail, and also provide the exact error message you get. Thanks.|||

I made a database + tables, I defined it a data source in Visual Studio/Business Intelligence/Analysis Services, made a view, and then I defined a simple cube. In AS 2000, I only needed to process the cube. But in 2005 I also need to deploy it. Then it gives an error that it doesn't reckognise the user (wich is a local windows user). Of course it needs to be a SQL Server user (I made an account in SQL Server 2005). I cannot find anywhere where to define the user for deploying the cube.

Thanks in advance.

|||

SSAS does not use SQL Server accounts for authentication. It only uses Windows accounts. This is why there is not where to specify a particular user as it always uses the current windows account. When you are setup using a domain this is not an issue as everything can be specified in terms of domain accounts.

In your situation it sounds like you have local accounts on your workstation and on the server. In this case what you have to do is to set up an identical account (same username and password) on both your workstation and the server. Then when you connect to the server you will effectively be "mapped" onto the local account on the server. So you will need to make sure the account on the server has the appropriate priviledges to deploy databases.

|||That sounds like a workaround.

I rebuilt the cube under the new account, and now I got exactly the same failure as the following:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=239828&SiteID=1

(and yes, I've altered the 'localhost' to the appropriate server running sql server 2005)|||

It could be seen as a work around, but it is the only way I know of to authenticate when you are not using a AD domain.

It sounds like you are having connectivity issues, possibly caused by a firewall or something. There is a great article on diagnosing connection issues here http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/edwardm/archive/2006/05/26/21447.aspx

I am suspicious that there may still be an underlying connection issue here. If you have the sample Adventure Works database you could use that to test that you can connect and query it. If you don't want to install the sample, would it be possible to copy the project files to the server and try to deploy the project locally on the server? If you can get this to work it would eliminate actual deployment issues and identify if we are dealing with a network connection issue.

|||I have watched the firewall, and the port configuration seems to be okay. The connection is closed abruptly. (FYI, I use ISA2004, and port 2382 is open, 2383 I do not get opened yet, but it isn't accessed either)
The error message is:
Error 1 The project could not be deployed to the '<server>' server because of the following connectivity problems : A connection cannot be made. Ensure that the server is running. To verify or update the name of the target server, right-click on the project in Solution Explorer, select Project Properties, click on the Deployment tab, and then enter the name of the server. 0 0
(<server> is either localhost, or the server running SQL Server 2005 + AS2005)
The MDX application wich came with AS2000 connects fine to AS2005.
Unfortunately, to set it up via http is not an option in my case.
Could anyone give me a link to where I can find out how and where AS2005 stores cubes etc?
My gratitude is yours.

Regards,

Eyso|||

The fact that you are seeing a connection on port 2382 suggests to me that you might be using a named instance (eg. <server>\<instance>). If this is the case, it will not use port 2383 and unless you have set a specific port for that instance you will not necessarily know which port is being used. With a named instance the client connects to the SQL Browser service on port 2382 to ask it which port the particular instance is listening on and the tries to use that port. If this is the case it sounds like you might want to set a specific port for the instance to use so that you can open up that port in your firewall, by default a named instance will just search for a free port number each time it starts up if one is not specifically set.

> The MDX application which came with AS2000 connects fine to AS2005.

This is unusual if you are getting "A connection cannot be made" errors - as they use the same sort of connection, its just the commands that are sent over the connection that vary. Are you using the same server name in the MDX Sample as in the deployment options in BIDS? I would expect a different error from this, but are you sure your user has the rights to deploy a database?

> Could anyone give me a link to where I can find out how and where AS2005 stores cubes etc?

The "where" is easy, there is a data directory set on the server and if needed you can override this on a partition basis. As to the "how" they are stored in a proprietary format I don't believe there is any public information on this (any you really should not need to know). All your access to SSAS should go through one of the documented API's - XMLA, AMO, ADOMD, ADOMD.NET etc.

|||Well, I made an account in SQL Server 2005 with the same name (as windows login) to my network account, and I open BIDS with my normal account, then if I want to deploy it, I get the following error message:
Error 1 Either the '<usergroup\username>' user does not have permission to create a new object in '<server>', or the object does not exist. 0 0
While it does exists, and I gave it every permission possible.
(as suggested in this thread: https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=398382&SiteID=1).|||Great.
Now I try to add securables to that account, run it as a script. Server Management says script has executed succesfully, but when I click again on the account, nothing has changed.
If I try to deploy the cube, nothing is being written in the logfile of SQL Server.|||Hm, if I try to add the server to 'servers' (BIDS -> Tools -> Add server), it doesn't seem to reckognise SQL Server 2005. Though it does reckognise SQL Server 2000, wich runs on the same server.|||

Eyso Zanstra wrote:

Well, I made an account in SQL Server 2005 with the same name (as windows login) to my network account

No - SQL Server accounts have nothing to do with Analysis Services. You can uninstall SQL Server completely and still run Analysis Services.

If you are logging into a windows domain you must setup that network account with administrative rights in order to be able to deploy a new database. You got me chasing down the wrong path when you started talking about using a local windows account earlier in the thread, and I assumed that you must have been running in a workgroup or using a novel network. if you are logged in to a windows domain you cannot map to a local account on the server - you can only assign the rights to the network account.

|||Thanks, that answers my question about how these cubes are being stored. :-)
Is it suffice when I get those rights only on that particular directory where the cube is stored?

Cube deployment hangs

Hi,

SQL2005 RTM

I work with offline cubes projects. When I change the cube dimensions, it sometimes happen that the deployment hangs. The deployment is set not to process the cube.

Then When I look into the Analysis services service status, I see that it is stopped!

I can sometimes get out of it by restarting the service or if really bad, restart the server, then the deploy works.

What's that?

Philippe

Make sure first you have SP1 installed. It contains some important bug fixes. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=CB6C71EA-D649-47FF-9176-E7CAC58FD4BC&displaylang=en

If you still the problem and you can reliably reproduce it, please contact customer support and report the problem.

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

|||

Edward Melomed wrote:

Make sure first you have SP1 installed. It contains some important bug fixes. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=CB6C71EA-D649-47FF-9176-E7CAC58FD4BC&displaylang=en

If you still the problem and you can reliably reproduce it, please contact customer support and report the problem.

Edward.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Thanks, but I will first try on a Guinea Pig Computer because SP1 brings other bugs and I do not want to apply SP1 HotFixes in emergency mode.
I am really really concerned about SP1 I do not dare to install it, it is just too risky. I guess I could not even uninstall it and would have to reformat and rebuild if SP1 screw me-up.
What I really want to do is to wait for SP1a so SP1 bad bugs like Integration services not working will not hit me as a two-one punch.
Philippe

Cube deployment

Hi,

I am trying to silently deploy a cube within my install using the following command line:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe" "c:\MyCubesFolder\Cubes.asdatabase" /s

but i keep getting the error message:

Reading input files...

Done

The 'Name' property cannot contain any of the following characters: . , ; ' ` : / * | ? " & % $ ! + = ( ) [ ] { } < >

The file contains URLs in some name properties with the ':' character. I tried removing those URLs but that didnt help.

Also, I was able to deploy the cube successfully using the same file from the Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe IDE - so I know my file is ok.

But I want to wrap this into the install and deploy it silently. Any ideas?

Thanks

Are you doing all steps from the list below ?

To create a XMLA script from solution project you have to buld solution (generas .asdatabase file), then run deployment wizard with option specifying that you want to generate XMLA script. Step by step guide:

Run script to build solution:
devenv.exe YourSolution.sln /build development /out BuildOutputLog.log
Instead of /build you can specify /rebuild
Instead of development you can specify other soluction configuration, like: Release
Example: "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\ide\devenv.exe" "c:\documents and settings\vidas\my documents\visual studio 2005\projects\MySolution\MySolution.sln" /build development /out BuildOutputLog.log Optionally run deployment wizard in answer mode to generate deployment script configuration. This is interactive step and can be done just once. Command:
Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe MySolution.asdatabase /a
Here /a runs deployment wizard in answer mode.
Example: Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe "c:\documents and settings\Vidas\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\MySolution\MySolution\bin\MySolution.asdatabase" /a Run deployment wizard command line script to generate XMLA file:
Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe MySolution.asDatabase /d /o:c:\MySolutionXMLAScript.xmla
Example: Microsoft.analysisServices.Deployment.exe "c:\Documents And Settings\Vidas\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\MySolution\MySolution\bin\MySolution.asDatabase" /d /o:c:\MySolutionXMLAScript.xmla|||

I think most of those names will refer to internal SSAS objects like annotations, so that is not likely to be the issue, specially if you can deploy from the UI. The ouput from silently deploying Adventure Works on my laptop look like the following. Notice that the line where you are getting hte error is where it should be attempting to connect to the target server. This is probably where the illegal character is. This should be in your .deploymentOptions file and it would depend on which configuration you had build last.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE>microsoft.analysisservices.deployment.exe "C:\Data\Projects\SSAS 2005 Samples\Enterprise\bin\Adventure Works DW.asdatabase" /s

Reading input files...
Done
Connecting to the localhost\sql05 server
Database, Adventure Works DW, found on server, localhost\sql05. Applying configuration settings and options...
Analyzing configuration settings...
Done
Analyzing optimization settings...
Done
Analyzing storage information...
Done
Analyzing security information...
Done
Generating processing sequence...
Deploying the 'Adventure Works DW' database to 'localhost\sql05'.
Done

Hope this helps

|||

Thanks for the replies

During install, I am updating the .deploymentOptions file with the ip address and instance where of the Analysis server where the cube is to be deployed. When I replaced the ip address with the system name, it seemed to work fine - looks like it cannot deal with the "." in the ip address - defect?

|||I think it might be. You should log this at http://connect.microsoft.com, it sounds like it might be an issue with the deployment wizard.

Cube deployment

Hi,

I am trying to silently deploy a cube within my install using the following command line:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe" "c:\MyCubesFolder\Cubes.asdatabase" /s

but i keep getting the error message:

Reading input files...

Done

The 'Name' property cannot contain any of the following characters: . , ; ' ` : / * | ? " & % $ ! + = ( ) [ ] { } < >

The file contains URLs in some name properties with the ':' character. I tried removing those URLs but that didnt help.

Also, I was able to deploy the cube successfully using the same file from the Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe IDE - so I know my file is ok.

But I want to wrap this into the install and deploy it silently. Any ideas?

Thanks

Are you doing all steps from the list below ?

To create a XMLA script from solution project you have to buld solution (generas .asdatabase file), then run deployment wizard with option specifying that you want to generate XMLA script. Step by step guide:

Run script to build solution:
devenv.exe YourSolution.sln /build development /out BuildOutputLog.log
Instead of /build you can specify /rebuild
Instead of development you can specify other soluction configuration, like: Release
Example: "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\ide\devenv.exe" "c:\documents and settings\vidas\my documents\visual studio 2005\projects\MySolution\MySolution.sln" /build development /out BuildOutputLog.log Optionally run deployment wizard in answer mode to generate deployment script configuration. This is interactive step and can be done just once. Command:
Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe MySolution.asdatabase /a
Here /a runs deployment wizard in answer mode.
Example: Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe "c:\documents and settings\Vidas\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\MySolution\MySolution\bin\MySolution.asdatabase" /a Run deployment wizard command line script to generate XMLA file:
Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe MySolution.asDatabase /d /o:c:\MySolutionXMLAScript.xmla
Example: Microsoft.analysisServices.Deployment.exe "c:\Documents And Settings\Vidas\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\MySolution\MySolution\bin\MySolution.asDatabase" /d /o:c:\MySolutionXMLAScript.xmla|||

I think most of those names will refer to internal SSAS objects like annotations, so that is not likely to be the issue, specially if you can deploy from the UI. The ouput from silently deploying Adventure Works on my laptop look like the following. Notice that the line where you are getting hte error is where it should be attempting to connect to the target server. This is probably where the illegal character is. This should be in your .deploymentOptions file and it would depend on which configuration you had build last.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE>microsoft.analysisservices.deployment.exe "C:\Data\Projects\SSAS 2005 Samples\Enterprise\bin\Adventure Works DW.asdatabase" /s

Reading input files...
Done
Connecting to the localhost\sql05 server
Database, Adventure Works DW, found on server, localhost\sql05. Applying configuration settings and options...
Analyzing configuration settings...
Done
Analyzing optimization settings...
Done
Analyzing storage information...
Done
Analyzing security information...
Done
Generating processing sequence...
Deploying the 'Adventure Works DW' database to 'localhost\sql05'.
Done

Hope this helps

|||

Thanks for the replies

During install, I am updating the .deploymentOptions file with the ip address and instance where of the Analysis server where the cube is to be deployed. When I replaced the ip address with the system name, it seemed to work fine - looks like it cannot deal with the "." in the ip address - defect?

|||I think it might be. You should log this at http://connect.microsoft.com, it sounds like it might be an issue with the deployment wizard.