MSAS : The Analysis Manager and Analysis Server

Analysis services is the middle tier server component of the MS SQL 2000. It manages multidimensional OLAP cubes of data and ease of access to such data to end users. It also enables user to create data mining models from the data in the cubes or in the relational databases.

The Analysis Manager and Analysis Server

The Analysis Manager:

The MS SQL Server 2000 Analysis services, includes the Analysis manager, which is a console application. This application provides user interface for accessing the Analysis servers and the meta data repositories associated with them. The Analysis Manager is represented as a folder named Analysis Servers located beneath the Console Root folder. The features of the Analysis manager are:

1. Single or multiple users can use Analysis manager to administer the Analysis server(s).
2. Data bases can be created and data sources can be specified using the service.
3. Cubes can be built, processed and browsed.
4. Data mining models can be created and processed
5. Storage options can be specified and query performance can be optimized.
6. Security can be managed
7. Data sources, shared dimensions, security roles and other objects can be browsed
8. Links to third party client applications, support resources , help updates and product news can be accessed
9. The Analysis manager tutorial can be used to familiarize oneself with the features of the SQL Server 2000.
10. User can obtain complete information on the SQL Server 2000 product.

Analysis Server

The server component of Microsoft SQL Server is called Analysis server. It is specifically designed to create and maintain multidimensional data structures and responses to queries from end users. The Analysis services is set up the Analysis server is set up by default and bears the name of the computer in which it is installed. End users connect to the Analysis server by specifying this name in the connection string. An analysis server object is also created during the process of installation and is the root object in the object hierarchy. The database object, the data source object and other objects which are created are subordinated to this object. The Analysis server and the subordinate objects can be managed through the Analysis Manager interface.

Each Analysis server has a repository called the Analysis Services repository. This repository is used to store meta data of the objects defined in the Analysis server. The default directory of this repository is Msmdrep.mdb and is stored in the computer running the Analysis services. This repository can be migrated to the SQL server database.

Each Analysis server is associated with a Data folder which stores multidimensional structures for objects defined on the Analysis server. These structures reside in the files created during object processing and are referenced to resolve queries sent to the Analysis server. The Data folder also contains some security files that control the access rights of various users. Since this file needs to be secured against unauthorized access, the location of the file can be specified during installation and also later by changing the values in the properties dialog box.

A service associated with the Analysis server is ‘MSSQLServerOLAPService’. This service starts as soon as SQL Server starts and logs on to system account. This is maintained in the Control panel -> Administrative tools ->Services application of Windows NT or Windows 2000.


In the next tutorial we will discuss about the different wizards available.