I currently have an application deployed as a service over the internet
(can't say ASP anymore or people will think I'm talking web servers) using
sql authentication and it's been working great. Now it's time to deploy an
analysis portion of the application and I've hit a dead end. My customers
are not on our domain, they are from hundreds of different companies around
the country so windows authentication seems like it is out. Is SSAS only
intended for internal company use on windows computers? No linux or mac
clients or external access (unless I enable anonymous access which is not an
option)?

Is there any way for me to generate a kerberos authentication token on the
client and pass it on to the server to impersonate a windows account? I
know where is some form of windows account impersonation using IIS but we
have no use for IIS otherwise and as far as I know using IIS limits us to
using XMLA for our queries and the current display components we have been
working with are not XMLA enabled. Am I better off finding a non-Microsoft
solution? I have to admit we are a ways down this path and I was surprised
to realize that this appears to be a windows client only solution, when
Microsoft has done such a good job with Sql Server in the past of making it
competitive with Oracle and DB2 for all clients, not just windows clients on
the same domain. Have they just dropped the ball with SSAS and decided not
to compete for clients unless they are on the same domain as the Sql Server?

Any help appreciated,

Shane Delmore

Hi Shane,

My clients use IntraSight to deliver Internet hosted BI solutions. SSAS
plays well in a service oriented architecture (SOA) over the Internet. But
you have to make the jump from client-server to SOA and XMLA - and dump
those client-server display components.

http://www.activeinterface.com/intrasight.html

Chris Harrington
Active Interface LLC


"Shane Delmore" <sdelmore (AT) clinicient (DOT) com> wrote