How to connect to SQL Analysis Services Data in DBVisualizer

The CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services implements JDBC standards to provide connectivity to SQL Analysis Services data in applications ranging from business intelligence tools to IDEs. This article shows how to establish a connection to SQL Analysis Services data in DBVisualizer and use the table editor to load SQL Analysis Services data.

Create a New Driver Definition for SQL Analysis Services Data

Follow the steps below to use the Driver Manager to provide connectivity to SQL Analysis Services data from DBVisualizer tools.

1. In DBVisualizer, click Tools -> Driver Manager.
2. Click the plus sign "" to create a new driver.
3. Select "Custom" as the template.
4. On the Driver Settings tab:
   • Set Name to a user-friendly name (e.g. "CData SQL Analysis Services Driver")
   • Set URL Format to jdbc:ssas:
   • In Driver artifacts and jar files (jars are loaded in order from top):
     1. Click the plus sign "" -> "Add Files"
     2. Navigate to the "lib" folder in the installation directory (C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] XXXX\)
     3. Select the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.SSAS.jar) and click "Open"
5. The Driver Class should populate automatically. If not, select class (cdata.jdbc.ssas.SSASDriver).

Define the Connection to the JDBC Data Source

Close the "Driver Manager" and follow the steps below to save connection properties in the JDBC URL.

1. In the "Databases" tab, click the plus sign "" and select the driver you just created.

2. In the "Connection" section, set the following options:

   • Database Type: If you selected the wizard option, the database type is automatically detected. If you selected the "No Wizard" option, select the Generic or Auto Detect option in the Database Type menu.
   • Driver Type: Select the driver you just created.

   • Database URL: Enter the full JDBC URL. The syntax of the JDBC URL is jdbc:ssas: followed by the connection properties in a semicolon-separated list of name-value pairs.

     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.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SQL Analysis Services JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.ssas.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     When you configure the JDBC URL, 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.

     A typical connection string is below:

     jdbc:ssas:User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll;
   • NOTE: Database Userid and Database Password correspond with the User and Password properties for SQL Analysis Services.
3. On the Connection tab, click Connect.

To browse through tables exposed by the SQL Analysis Services JDBC Driver, right-click a table and click "Open in New Tab."

To execute SQL queries, use the SQL Commander tool: Click SQL Commander -> New SQL Commander. Select the Database Connection, Database, and Schema from the available menus.

See the "Supported SQL" chapter in the help documentation for more information on the supported SQL. See the "Data Model" chapter for table-specific information.

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