How to Access SQL Analysis Services Data Using Entity Framework

Microsoft Entity Framework serves as an object-relational mapping framework for working with data represented as objects. Although Visual Studio offers the ADO.NET Entity Data Model wizard to automatically generate the Entity Model, this model-first approach may present challenges when your data source undergoes changes or when you require greater control over entity operations. In this article, we will delve into the code-first approach for accessing SQL Analysis Services data through the CData ADO.NET Provider, providing you with more flexibility and control.

1. Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Form Application. This article uses a C# project with .NET 4.5.
2. Run the command 'Install-Package EntityFramework' in the Package Manger Console in Visual Studio to install the latest release of Entity Framework.

3. Modify the App.config file in the project to add a reference to the SQL Analysis Services Entity Framework 6 assembly and the connection string.

   To connect, provide authentication and set the Url property to a valid SQL Server Analysis Services endpoint. You can connect to SQL Server Analysis Services instances hosted over HTTP with XMLA access. See the Microsoft documentation to configure HTTP access to SQL Server Analysis Services.

   To secure connections and authenticate, set the corresponding connection properties, below. The data provider supports the major authentication schemes, including HTTP and Windows, as well as SSL/TLS.

   • HTTP Authentication

     Set AuthScheme to "Basic" or "Digest" and set User and Password. Specify other authentication values in CustomHeaders.

   • Windows (NTLM)

     Set the Windows User and Password and set AuthScheme to "NTLM".

   • Kerberos and Kerberos Delegation

     To authenticate with Kerberos, set AuthScheme to NEGOTIATE. To use Kerberos delegation, set AuthScheme to KERBEROSDELEGATION. If needed, provide the User, Password, and KerberosSPN. By default, the data provider attempts to communicate with the SPN at the specified Url.

   • SSL/TLS:

     By default, the data provider attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store. To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats.

   You can then access any cube as a relational table: When you connect the data provider retrieves SSAS metadata and dynamically updates the table schemas. Instead of retrieving metadata every connection, you can set the CacheLocation property to automatically cache to a simple file-based store.

   See the Getting Started section of the CData documentation, under Retrieving Analysis Services Data, to execute SQL-92 queries to the cubes.

   <configuration>
    ... 
    <connectionStrings>
    <add name="SSASContext" connectionString="Offline=False;User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll;" providerName="System.Data.CData.SSAS" />
    </connectionStrings>
    <entityFramework>
    <providers>
    ... 
    <provider invariantName="System.Data.CData.SSAS" type="System.Data.CData.SSAS.SSASProviderServices, System.Data.CData.SSAS.Entities.EF6" />
    </providers>
    <entityFramework>
   </configuration>
   </code> 
   

4. Add a reference to System.Data.CData.SSAS.Entities.EF6.dll, located in the lib -> 4.0 subfolder in the installation directory.
5. Build the project at this point to ensure everything is working correctly. Once that's done, you can start coding using Entity Framework.
6. Add a new .cs file to the project and add a class to it. This will be your database context, and it will extend the DbContext class. In the example, this class is named SSASContext. The following code example overrides the OnModelCreating method to make the following changes:
   • Remove PluralizingTableNameConvention from the ModelBuilder Conventions.
   • Remove requests to the MigrationHistory table.

   using System.Data.Entity;
   using System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure;
   using System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.Conventions;
   
   class SSASContext : DbContext {
    public SSASContext() { }
   
    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
    // To remove the requests to the Migration History table
    Database.SetInitializer<SSASContext>(null); 
    // To remove the plural names 
    modelBuilder.Conventions.Remove<PluralizingTableNameConvention>();
    } 
   }
   

7. Create another .cs file and name it after the SQL Analysis Services entity you are retrieving, for example, Adventure_Works. In this file, define both the Entity and the Entity Configuration, which will resemble the example below:

   using System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration;
   using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;
   
   [System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema.Table("Adventure_Works")]
   public class Adventure_Works {
    [System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Key] 
    public System.String Fiscal_Year { get; set; }
    public System.String Sales_Amount { get; set; }
   }
    
   

8. Now that you have created an entity, add the entity to your context class:

   public DbSet<Adventure_Works> Adventure_Works { set; get; }
   

9. With the context and entity finished, you are now ready to query the data in a separate class. For example:

   SSASContext context = new SSASContext();
   context.Configuration.UseDatabaseNullSemantics = true;
   var query = from line in context.Adventure_Works select line;