Use the CData ODBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services in MicroStrategy Web

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with the CData ODBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services, you gain database-like access to live SQL Analysis Services data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through adding SQL Analysis Services as external data in MicroStrategy Web and creating a simple visualization of SQL Analysis Services data.

The CData ODBC driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live SQL Analysis Services data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to SQL Analysis Services, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to SQL Analysis Services and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze SQL Analysis Services data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to SQL Analysis Services as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to SQL Analysis Services follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments (the ODBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services must be installed on the machine hosting the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server).

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

[CData SSAS Sys]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services
Description = My Description
User = myuseraccount
Password = mypassword
URL = http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Connect to and Visualize SQL Analysis Services Data using MicroStrategy Web

Once you have created a database instance in MicroStrategy Developer and connected it to a project, you can perform a data import of SQL Analysis Services data from MicroStrategy Web. Alternatively, you can create a new data source based on the ODBC Driver.^*

1. Open MicroStrategy Web and select your project.
2. Click Add External Data, select Databases, and choose Select a Table as the Import Option.
3. In the Import from Tables wizard, click to add a new data source.
   • Select DSN Data Sources
   • Set the DSN property to the previously configured DSN (CData SSAS Sys)
   • Set the Version property to Generic DBMS
   • Set the User and Password properties (or use filler values)
   • Set the Data Source Name
   👁 Configuring the new Data Source
   
4. After creating the data source, click to edit the catalog options and set the following queries and click OK.
   • SQL statement to retrieve tables available in the data source

     SELECT
      CatalogName NAME_SPACE,
      TableName TAB_NAME
     FROM
      SYS_TABLES
      

   • SQL statement to retrieve columns for the selected tables

     SELECT DISTINCT 
      CatalogName NAME_SPACE, 
      TableName TAB_NAME, 
      ColumnName COL_NAME, 
      DataTypeName DATA_TYPE, 
      Length DATA_LEN, 
      NumericPrecision DATA_PREC, 
      NumericScale DATA_SCALE 
     FROM 
      SYS_TABLECOLUMNS 
     WHERE 
      TableName IN (#TABLE_LIST#) 
     ORDER BY
      1,2,3
      

5. Drag a table into the pane. 👁 Connecting to SQL Analysis Services data.
   Note: Since we create a live connection, we can import whole tables and utilize the filtering and aggregation features native to the MicroStrategy products.
6. Click Finish, choose to the option to connect live, save the query, and choose the option to create a new dossier. 👁 Save the query and create a new dossier.
   
7. Choose a visualization, choose fields to display, and apply any filters to create a new visualization of SQL Analysis Services data. Data types are discovered automatically through dynamic metadata discovery. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to SQL Analysis Services, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL engine embedded in the driver. 👁 Visualize SQL Analysis Services data.
   
8. Once you have finished configuring the dossier, click File -> Save.

Using the CData ODBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services in MicroStrategy Web, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on SQL Analysis Services data. Read our other articles on connecting to SQL Analysis Services in MicroStrategy and connecting to SQL Analysis Services in MicroStrategy Desktop for more examples.

Note: connecting using a ODBC driver requires a 3- or 4-tier architecture.