(newbie) updating dimensions

Hi,

I apologise if I have missed something obvious here, but I am having a problem finding how to set up a cube to update dimensions automatically when data is changed in the source database. From what I can see in Books Online, dimension writeback does not do this because the update is initiated by the user. I have got storage settings for measures figured out, and we are using low-latency MOLAP. In BIDS, there does not seem to be a similar way to set up the dimensions to be updated. Can anyone advise me on how this is done?

Any help much appreciated.

Hello. The feature that you are looking for is maybe "proactive caching".

My advice is to be very careful about this feature. You will need to be an experienced SSAS2005(Analysis Services 2005) consultant to set this up properly.

I also think that it is only a feature in the enterprise edition.

The budget version is to have an SSIS-package(Integration Services) that detects changes in the database and automatically start an SSAS2005 processing task after that.

Looks like you are planning to build a cube on top of an OLTP-system(transaction system) and ignore the option to build a data warehouse/ data mart?

I always recommend a datamart separate from the source system as the minimum requirement to build a good analytic solution.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

Have a look at proactive caching here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/rtbissas.mspx

|||Thanks for your reply, Thomas. We already have our options worked out re: proactive caching as far as measures are concerned, where the BIDS UI is perfectly clear. It is for dimensions specifically that we are having trouble. Can anyone shed any light on that specifically? Thanks very much for any help.|||

Hello again Ed.

I have not used this feature myself and have no plans to do it in the near future.

You have all dimensions as ROLAP?

I you buy "MS SQL server 2005 Analysis Services"(SAMS) there is almost a whole chapter(24) with recommendations of how to configure this properly.

HTH
Thomas Ivarsson

|||Thank you Thomas. I'll definitely take a look at that book.sql

"Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password"

First, I checked all the obvious problems. The password is right and the login works perfectly.
Here is the output from Developer Studio when trying to deploy/process a cube:

Performing an incremental deployment of the 'MaxMinManufacturingDM' database to the 'localhost' server.
Generating deployment script...
Process Database MaxMinManufacturingDM
Done
Sending deployment script to the server...
Error -1056899072 : The following system error occurred: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password. .
Error -1055784860 : Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of 'Max Min Manufacturing DM', Name of 'Max Min Manufacturing DM'.
Error -1054932980 : Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of 'Manufacturing Fact', Name of 'Dim Time' was being processed.
Error -1054932979 : Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the 'Year Of Manufacture' attribute of the 'Dim Time' dimension from the 'MaxMinManufacturingDM' database was being processed.

My Analysis Services project (or Business Intelligence project) has only one Data Source, "Max Min Manufacturing DM.ds". I'm using a SQL Server login with a saved password.

I double click the data source to get to the "Data Source Designer" dialog and see the following connection string:

Provider=SQLNCLI.1;Data Source=localhost;Persist Security Info=True;Password=**********;User ID=MaxMinUser;Initial Catalog=MaxMinManufacturingDM

I click "Edit" and "Test Connection" and get "Test connection succeeded". The "Save my password" option is checked. The password is fine and the login should works perfectly. Developer Studio can obviously connect to the database since I've done all the design through it. I can't imagine why I'm getting this error.

I'm using:

Windows XP (dev machine)
Relational Data Mart is using SQL Server 2000 SP4 (I can't upgrade to SQL Server 2005 for business reasons beyond my control)
Visual Studio Studio 2005
SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 (I believe I put SP1 on this).

Any idea?

Hello. Are you running the SQL Server services and the SSAS2005 services with the same or different accounts?

When you process a cube the SSAS2005 must have permissions to read data from the source database. If you run SSAS2005 on a separate machine than the sourec database and the SSAS2005 service account is running as "local system" this server have no permissions on other servers/machines.

You can check this is the SQL Server Configuration manager(for SSAS2005).

Also, try the default impersonation mode for the data source connection.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

|||Great!!! Setting the "impersonation mode" to default worked. I guess I should read up on that so I understand what the difference between the impersonation mode and the database login is.

Yes, everything is running on the same server (it's a development box): SSAS2005, MSSQL2000, and Visual Studio.

"Connection to the server was reset" "server not currently accepting connections&

Hi there,

This is probably a really obvious question but I have been struggling with answering it for about two days now. (I may even be in the wrong forum) I work in a company with an internal network set up. I have been trying to connect to our website via FTP and it has worked ... well it did in the beginning. I think the server that our website is hosted on is a Unix server - this is a guess from reading the FTP transcripts of the various programs I've downloaded and tried out in an attempt to connect to it.

What happened:

I was working on an .ASP page in Dreamweaver, hit save without thinking, realised I wanted to make a few additional changes before uploading it onto the server, cancelled the transaction and voila. I haven't been able to connect to the remote server since.

Depending on the FTP program that I am using, I get a connection error along these lines:

- "Connection to the server was reset" "The server may temporarily be down or unavailable or not accepting connections"

I am a big newbie at this. I have turned off the windows firewall and tried turning on and off passive IP. I can connect from home but not from inside the building which has me think this has to do with a stray setting somewhere. My housemate suggested I try using the "telnet" command from DOS and see can I get any sort of connection from work. If I can't, he said, it's probably a firewall on the internal network itself.

Any other suggestions?

Help would be welcome!

Thanks.

Quizzy

Think you might want to post this in another group.

Maybe something in Server/Networking