Access Live SQL Analysis Services Data in TIBCO Data Virtualization

TIBCO Data Virtualization (TDV) is an enterprise data virtualization solution that orchestrates access to multiple and varied data sources. When paired with the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for SQL Analysis Services, you get federated access to live SQL Analysis Services data directly within TIBCO Data Virtualization. This article walks through deploying an adapter and creating a new data source based on SQL Analysis Services.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData TIBCO DV Adapter offers unmatched performance for interacting with live SQL Analysis Services data. When you issue complex SQL queries to SQL Analysis Services, the adapter pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to SQL Analysis Services. Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze SQL Analysis Services data using native data types.

Deploy the SQL Analysis Services TIBCO DV Adapter

1. In a console, navigate to the bin folder in the TDV Server installation directory. If there is a current version of the adapter installed, you will need to undeploy it.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -undeploy -version 1 -name SSAS
   

2. Extract the CData TIBCO DV Adapter to a local folder and deploy the JAR file (tdv.ssas.jar) to the server from the extract location.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -deploy -package /PATH/TO/tdv.ssas.jar
   

You may need to restart the server to ensure the new JAR file is loaded properly, which can be accomplished by running the composite.bat script located at: C:\Program Files\TIBCO\TDV Server <version>\bin. Note that reauthenticating to the TDV Studio is required after restarting the server.

Sample Restart Call

.\composite.bat monitor restart

Create a SQL Analysis Services Data Source in TDV Studio

With the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for SQL Analysis Services, you can easily create a data source for SQL Analysis Services and introspect the data source to add resources to TDV.

Create the Data Source

1. Right-click on the folder you wish to add the data source to and select New -> New Data Source.
2. Scroll until you find the adapter (e.g. SQL Analysis Services) and click Next.
3. Name the data source (e.g. CData SQL Analysis Services Source).

4. Fill in the required connection properties.

   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.

5. Click Create & Close.

Introspect the Data Source

Once the data source is created, you can introspect the data source by right-clicking and selecting Open. In the dashboard, click Add/Remove Resources and select the Tables, Views, and Stored Procedures to include as part of the data source. Click Next and Finish to add the selected SQL Analysis Services tables, views, and stored procedures as resources.

After creating and introspecting the data source, you are ready to work with SQL Analysis Services data in TIBCO Data Virtualization just like you would any other relational data source. You can create views, query using SQL, publish the data source, and more.