Configure a Solicit-Response Send Port for the CData BizTalk Adapter for SQL Analysis Services

This section provides step-by-step instructions for creating, configuring, and testing a static solicit-response send port using the CData BizTalk Adapter for SQL Analysis Services. You can use a static solicit-response send port to execute commands and access the results in BizTalk. You can use send ports to execute updategram commands, SQL commands, and stored procedure operations.

Create and Configure the Send Port

Create a static solicit-response send port and configure it to use the adapter as its transport type.

1. If you have not already done so, open your BizTalk application in the BizTalk Administration Console.
2. In the node for your BizTalk application, right-click Send Ports and select New -> Static Solicit-Response Send Port. The Send Port Properties dialog is displayed.
3. In the Send Port properties, enter a name for the receive port.
4. In the Transport Type menu, select CData.SSAS;.
5. In the Send pipeline menu, select the default option, PassThruTransmit.
6. In the Receive pipeline menu, select the default option, PassThruReceive.

Configure the Adapter

Define the command the adapter will execute in the Transport Properties dialog.

1. In the send port properties, click the Configure button. The Adapter Transport Properties dialog is displayed.
2. In the CommandType property, select the command type you want.
3. If you want to execute an SQL command, enter the command in the SQL Command box.

Refer to the "Adapter Configuration" chapter in the help documentation for a description of the various properties and their functions.

Configure the Connection to SQL Analysis Services

Configure credentials and other properties required to connect to SQL Analysis Services in the Connection String Options dialog.

1. In the send port properties, click Configure. The adapter properties dialog is displayed.
2. Click the button in the Connection String property. The Connection String Options dialog is displayed.
3. Enter the connection properties. Below is a typical connection string: User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll;

   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.

4. Click Test Connection to verify the values and test connectivity.

Refer to the "Connection String Options" chapter in the help documentation for a description of the various properties and their functions. The updategram tutorial for the adapter for SQL Analysis Services walks through the steps to create a simple application that uses a solicit-response send port to execute an insert updategram to SQL Analysis Services.