Connect to SQL Analysis Services Data as a SQL Server Linked Server

SQL Server Linked Servers enable the SQL Server Database Engine to read data from remote data sources and execute commands against the remote database servers outside of the instance of SQL Server. Typically, linked servers are configured to enable the execution of a T-SQL statement that includes tables in another instance of SQL Server, or another database product such as Oracle. When paired with CData Connect AI, linked servers provides instant access to SQL Analysis Services data from your SQL Server database. This article demonstrates how to connect to SQL Analysis Services using Connect AI and query SQL Analysis Services data in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for SQL Analysis Services, allowing you to query data from SQL Analysis Services without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to SQL Analysis Services, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested SQL Analysis Services data quickly.

Configure SQL Analysis Services Connectivity for SQL Server

Connectivity to SQL Analysis Services from SQL Linked Servers is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with SQL Analysis Services data from SQL Linked Servers, we start by creating and configuring a SQL Analysis Services connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "SQL Analysis Services" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to 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.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SQL Analysis Services Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to SQL Analysis Services data from .

Connect to SQL Analysis Services from SQL Server using Connect AI

To establish a connection from SQL Server Linked Server to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

1. Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
2. In the Object Explorer pane, open Server Objects, right-click Linked Servers, and select New Linked Server.

3. The New Linked Server dialogue opens. On the General page, enter the following information:
   • Enter a name for the server in the Linked server field.
   • Select the radio button Other data source and select SQL Server Native Client 11.0 as the provider.
   • In the Data source field, enter tds.cdata.com,14333
   • In the Catalog field, enter enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, SSAS1).
   
4. Select the Security page. At the bottom, select the radio button labeled Be made using this security context and enter the following information:
   • Remote login - enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected].
   • With password - enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
   
5. Click OK to create the server.
Your linked server can now be used to access the data in the data source you specified. If you need to access data from more sources, create another linked server for each one.

Execute Queries

You can now execute queries to the SQL Analysis Services linked server from any tool that can connect to SQL Server. An example SQL query would be:

		SELECT * FROM [CDATA CONNECT CLOUD].[SSAS1].[SSAS].[Adventure_Works]
	

We have successfully created a linked server that allows us to query SQL Analysis Services data.

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