Connect to SQL Analysis Services Data from PowerBuilder

The CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services is a standards-based control that can be used from any platform or development technology that supports JDBC, including PowerBuilder. This article shows how to use the CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services in PowerBuilder.

This article shows how to create a basic PowerBuilder application that uses the CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services to retrieve data.

Connect to SQL Analysis Services Data from PowerBuilder

Follow the steps below to use the Database Painter tool to create a database profile based on an JDBC URL for SQL Analysis Services. You can use a database profile to save connection properties. In the Database Painter, you can graphically manipulate data as well as execute SQL queries.

1. Add the driver JAR to the PowerBuilder classpath. Set the CLASSPATH system environment variable to the path to the driver JAR, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

   Note: If you are using PowerBuilder Classic, you can also add the path to the driver JAR by clicking Tools -> System Options -> Java.

2. Click Tools -> Database Painter.
3. Right-click the JDBC node and click New Profile.
4. In the Database Profile Setup dialog, enter the following:
   • Profile Name: Enter a user-friendly name for the profile.
   • Driver Name: Enter the class name of the driver, cdata.jdbc.ssas.SSASDriver
   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL.

     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.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.ssas.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard. A typical JDBC URL is below:

     jdbc:ssas:User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll;
5. To view and modify a table, right-click a table and then click Edit Data -> Grid.

Using SQL Analysis Services Data with PowerBuilder Controls

You can use standard PowerBuilder objects to connect to JDBC data sources and execute queries. The following example shows how to retrieve SQL Analysis Services data into a DataWindow. You can add the following code to the open method: