Sorry if I seem like a dunce on this topic.

Is there a way to access OLAP data without going through Analysis Services?
My company is looking into a web-based reporting tool that doesn't have OLAP
capability. I am wondering if there is a way to access the data in the OLAP
structure as if they were a set of pre-aggregated tables, and if so, how
that is done.

Any insight would be much appreciated. TIA

OLAP provides fast response time by storing aggregated values. Of course you
can roll your own aggregate tables (or indexed views) and you don't need an
OLAP server. You will need client software that knows if/when/how to
navigate the aggregate tables however. Not many front-ends do this out of
the box. OLAP servers exist (in part) to simplify all of this.

tom @ the domain below
www.tomchester.net


"J O Holloway" <jholloway (AT) pinncorp (DOT) com> wrote

Thanks, Tom.

What I'm wondering is if there's a way to access those aggregated values as
if they were a bunch of tables, directly, without having to go through the
OLAP interface. The reason that I'm asking is because the reporting tool in
which my company is most interested is incapable of browsing cubes the way
that Excel or XMLAbrowser can. If it's not possible to do this, then that's
good information for us. Is it not possible?

TIA


"Tom Chester" <publicNOSPAM (AT) tomchester (DOT) net> wrote

It is possible to use a special SQL dialect that accesses Analysis
Services much like relational tables (including group-by aggregation).
But, as Tom pointed out, AS and MDX can address real-life reporting
needs better than mere aggregations. Can you divulge the identity of
this web-based reporting tool, since most of the current ones do provide
(limited) access to OLAP data?

Here is a link to some MSDN info on using SQL in Analysis Services - the
MDX with flattened rowset output is a more versatile option than the SQL
dialect:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de.../en-us/olapdmp
r/prsql_106r.asp


- Deepak

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Panscopic is the tool. It seems quite nice so far, but has no facility for
browsing cubes.

Thanks for the link.



"Deepak Puri" <deepak_puri (AT) progressive (DOT) com> wrote

Thanks, Terry. I got that going, using the following statement (which I
ripped from http://dbforums.com/arch/67/2002/7/418577):

exec sp_addlinkedserver
@server='FoodMart', /* local SQL name given to the linked server */
@srvproduct='', /* not used */
@provider='MSOLAP.2', /* OLE DB provider */
@datasrc='myAnalysisServerName', /* analysis server name (machine name) */
@catalog='Foodmart 2000' /* default catalog/database */

From there I can run MDX queries such as (from
http://support.microsoft.com/default...n-us;Q218592):

select *
from openquery(FoodMart,
'select
{Time.Year.[1997] } on columns,
non empty Store.members on rows
from Sales
where ( Product.[Product Category].[Dairy])'
)

"Terry M. Ledet" <terry.ledet (AT) sci-us (DOT) com> wrote