Import Real-Time SQL Analysis Services Data in ColdFusion to Build Applications

Adobe ColdFusion is a web and mobile application development platform. It uses its own scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), to create data-driven websites as well as generate remote services, such as REST.

When ColdFusion is paired with the CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services, you can link your ColdFusion web and mobile applications to operational SQL Analysis Services data. This allows for your applications to be more robust and complete. This article details how to use the JDBC driver to create a table populated with SQL Analysis Services data from within a ColdFusion markup file.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live SQL Analysis Services data. When you issue complex SQL queries to SQL Analysis Services, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to SQL Analysis Services and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations). Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze SQL Analysis Services data using native data types.

Configuring the Connection to SQL Analysis Services

You will need a JDBC connection string to establish a connection between Coldfusion and SQL Analysis Services.

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.

Adding a Data Source and Creating a Table

After configuring the connection, follow the steps below to add the CData JDBC Driver to ColdFusion's lib directory, add a new data source, test the connection, create a ColdFusion markup file, and, finally, make a real-time connection with SQL Analysis Services data and display it in a table written in the ColdFusion Markup Language, or CFML:

1. Copy the JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services and lic file from "C:\Program Files\CData[product_name]\lib" to "C:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\wwwroot\WEB-INF\lib". cdata.jdbc.ssas.jar cdata.jdbc.ssas.lic

   Note: If you do not copy the .lic file with the jar, you will see a licensing error that indicates you do not have a valid license installed. This is true for both the trial and full versions.

2. From the ColdFusion administrator interface, choose Data & Services.
3. Here, we can "Add New Data Source". The data source name can be any name, provided it conforms to the ColdFusion variable naming conventions. For our JDBC driver, choose "other", then click the "Add" button.
4. Next, populate the driver properties.
   • JDBC URL will need to be in the format: jdbc:ssas:|connectionString|.
   • A typical connection string looks like this:

     jdbc:ssas:User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll;

   • The Driver Class is: cdata.jdbc.ssas.SSASDriver
   • The Driver Name is arbitrary and simply used to recognize the data source in the ColdFusion administration console.
5. Now, test the connection by clicking the check mark to the left of the CDataSQL Analysis ServicesJDBC data source you just created. When the data source reports an "OK" status, it is ready for use.
6. Next, create a new ColdFusion Markup file (.cfm) and place it in the wwwroot directory ("C:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\wwwroot") for ColdFusion.

   The following code queries the data source:

               
           <cfquery name="SQL Analysis ServicesQuery" dataSource="CDataSQL Analysis ServicesJDBC"> 
             SELECT * FROM Adventure_Works 
           </cfquery> 
       

   And a CFTable can be used to quickly output the table in HTML:

               
             <cftable  
             query = "SQL Analysis ServicesQuery" 
             border = "1" 
             colHeaders 
             colSpacing = "2" 
             headerLines = "2" 
             HTMLTable 
             maxRows = "500" 
             startRow = "1"> 
   
             <cfcol header="<b>Fiscal_Year</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="Fiscal_Year"/> 
   
             <cfcol header="<b>Sales_Amount</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="Sales_Amount"/> 
   
             ...
   
           </cftable> 
       

   Full code, including the HTML portion is available below:

               
           <html> 
           <head><title>CData Software | SQL Analysis Services Adventure_Works Table Demo </title></head> 
           <body> 
           <cfoutput>#ucase("SQL Analysis Services Adventure_Works Table Demo")#</cfoutput> 
           <cfquery name="SQL Analysis ServicesQuery" dataSource="CDataSQL Analysis ServicesJDBC"> 
   
             SELECT * FROM Adventure_Works 
   
           </cfquery> 
           <cftable  
             query = "SQL Analysis ServicesQuery" 
             border = "1" 
             colHeaders 
             colSpacing = "2" 
             headerLines = "2" 
             HTMLTable 
             maxRows = "500" 
             startRow = "1"> 
             <cfcol header="<b>Fiscal_Year</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="Fiscal_Year"/> 
   
             <cfcol header="<b>Sales_Amount</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="Sales_Amount"/> 
   
             ...
   
           </cftable> 
           </body> 
   
           </html>  
       

7. Finally, run the code locally in a browser at the default port of 8500. It produces a table populated with SQL Analysis Services data!

As a note, the CData JDBC Drivers also support parameterized queries using the cfqueryparam element. For example: SELECT * FROM Account WHERE name =

Get Started Today

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services and start building SQL Analysis Services-connected applications with Adobe ColdFusion. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.