Tuesday, November 18, 2008

This is a little bit tricky. Unlike the AdomdClient assembly, the AdomdServer assembly  doesn't have a descriptive name. It's called msmgdsrv.dll and it is located in Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\OLAP\bin. Why it's not documented anywhere?

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 11:17:16 PM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)
 Monday, November 17, 2008

After announcing the MdxInjection program I got several requests for additional details and for the ability to run it without using Visual Studio. So, here are some important points:

  • When I published it I had developers in mind because I'm sure than anyone will want to do his little modification before using it for his own needs. That's why I published it as a solution and not as executable.
  • I written it down using VS2008 but only with the .Net 2 framework. Those of you who uses VS2005 won't be able to open the solution.
  • The program has only one public method - InjectMdx, who takes two arguments: The location of the CommonMdx file and the location of the xml configuration file.
  • The CommonMdx.mdx file contains the common MDX script. The relevant part has to start with /* Common MDX */ and then the common mdx script. Anything written before it won't be treated. That gives you the ability to save some data or comments for yourself in this file.
  • Example of the configuration xml file can be found in the Test libary inside the solution. Basically, it enable you to define in which servers, databases and cubes you want to inject the common script. Pay attention that you have to write the connection strings in this file.
  • Note that the program will detect cube dimensions with their name changed and will know how to replace them. That means that if you mention the Time dimension in the common script and inject it to AdventureWorks cube, the script will replace the string "Time" with the "ShipmentDate" string, for example.

For those of you who want simple execution file, I added a windows console project in the solution.

Link to only executable program
Link to the solution with the added windows application project
Link to the solution without the windows application project
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 6:54:17 AM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)

In the previous post I talked about the DRY principle in the BI Development. I mentioned that one of the major problems in the principle's implementation is in the common MDX code. Chris Commented:

"I'd like to be able to have a global MDX Script and be able to do something like a #include to bring calculations into specific cubes. One to add to my wishlist for the next version..."

And as I said there that I have a temporary good solution until we'll have it in the next SQL Server release (if someone from Microsoft is reading...).

The MdxInjection program takes your common MDX Script and a very simple xml file that defines where to inject this script. It injects the script into your desired cubes and even replaces the dimensions' names where necessary (it is relevant where you put dimension in a cube with a different name to thr dimension or when you use Role Playing Dimensions). I couldn't hold myself from writing some test code so it's also included in the project. The project is written in C# 2 using much AMO code. All the technical little details are inside.

Enjoy.

Download Link

Monday, November 17, 2008 8:29:02 AM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)