Analysis Services deployment wizard

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Analysis Services deployment wizard

Ashok Jebaraj

Ten Centuries

Points: 1215
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May 26, 2008 at 1:06 am

#185995

Hello,
I have little bit of knowledge in SSAS deployment wizard. It works perfect when we want to deploy the entire database. However in my case, I have modified one cube and added one dimension to that cube. Is there a way I can deploy by only adding the new dimension to that cube and not disturb the other dimension for that cube?
Thank you,
Ashok Jebaraj

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Reddog-466100 SSC Enthusiast Points: 100 More actions · Answer 1

I do not know if its posible with the deployment wizzard, but you could use BIDS to do this.

jteeter Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 557 More actions · Answer 2

Using management studio, right click on the dimension and choose "script dimension as" -> "create to" -> "file".

If you're using source control, you can check the XMLA file in.

Manual deployment is easy - just connect to your new database, open the XMLA file, and execute it.

Scripted deployment is possible also. You need ascmd, which is a micofsoft tool similar to sqlcmd that lets you run XMLA files from the command line. You have to download it - it's not on the site I originally downloaded it from but I've heard it's part of Project Real.

Also, see the readme for ascmd.

Ashok Jebaraj Ten Centuries Points: 1215 More actions · Answer 3

Hello...Thank you for your reply...Anyways I do not know what is BIDS.

Ashok Jebaraj Ten Centuries Points: 1215 More actions · Answer 4

Exactly...I am presently using XMLA file deployment. But it requires a lot of documentation explaining the connection changes. The DSV, everything would be different in the prod environment.

sivasudarsanan SSC Veteran Points: 228 More actions · Answer 5

BIDS means Business Intelligence Development Studio its come with SQL Server 2005..

jteeter Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 557 More actions · Answer 6

Ashok Jebaraj (5/26/2008)
Exactly...I am presently using XMLA file deployment. But it requires a lot of documentation explaining the connection changes. The DSV, everything would be different in the prod environment.

So I'm assuming you've built this new dimension in either a development or test environment, certified that it does what you need, and now you want to deploy this to your production environment. Right?

Now I'm hoping that when you say your DSV is different you're just talking about the ID. If so, you can change the XMLA to use a parameter $(DataSourceViewID) in place of your DSV, then when you run ascmd you'd execute ascmd.exe -S server_name -i my_file.xmla -d db_name -v DataSourceViewID=my_id

But when you say everything would be different in prod, you could be talking about a much bigger problem. If your analysis database is very different between dev/test and prod (not just IDs but column binding definitions, etc.), that's something you should work to correct. For this project perhaps go the route of a document describing all the setup steps, but you'll want to script your production cube and bring it back to your test/dev environment(s) so you don't have this problem again.

Ashok Jebaraj Ten Centuries Points: 1215 More actions · Answer 7

Thank you all for your answers.

I think I should set up a dev environment same as the one which is in Prod. I would like to know which deployment method is suggested (XMLA/ Wizard) and for what reason?

Thank you,

Ashok Jebaraj

jteeter Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 557 More actions · Answer 8

I strongly recommend you use more answers than just mine, because I've only done it one way and don't know the benefits of the others.

But in my company, we script everything (no wizards) - XMLAs to update Analysis, TSQL to add tables / update data, other TSQL to do programmability, and a program we wrote to deploy RDLs, gifs, etc. to reporting services.

There's some effort to put this in place, but once you have it you can programmatically apply changes to any environment (dev, UAT, prod, DR, etc.) and know that the deployment was done correctly in all places.

The other benefit is that you check in your update scripts to source control, which lets you see who changed what over time. You don't get that with a UI based update mechanism.

tam-928946 SSCommitted Points: 1583 More actions · Answer 9

Can you please tell me .. how to use ASCMD command line utility ?

I want to prepare deployment package in terms of batch file to execute .xmla files to create cubes and then prepare jobs to process those cubes.

I am familiar with SQLCMD, but i have no idea about ASCMD ... is it a third party tool that we need to install first ?

Please let me know if u know how to deploy cube using command prompt.

Thanks in advance.