Knight's Microsoft® Business Intelligence 24-Hour Trainer: Leveraging Microsoft SQL Server® Integration, Analysis, and Reporting Services with Excel® and SharePoint®

Administering the SSAS Instance

In this SSAS section of the book you’ve seen how to create and browse a cube and mining

models. Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten the administrator who now has to manage and

secure the SSAS instance. This lesson will show you how to secure and optimize the end-user

experience. You’ll also learn how to process the cube and keep it up to date.

Throughout this lesson we’ll be using Lesson19Complete.zip from the Wrox

website (

www.wrox.com) to start. After downloading it, please deploy the SSAS

project to your development server to ensure you’re on the same solution. You

can also download the final solution by downloading Lesson20Complete.zip.

SECURING THE DATABASE

As you store more and more data in the cube, security will become a concern. In terms of

security SSAS is much like SQL Server: you can secure objects like measures, attributes, cubes,

and mining models. But in SSAS you can also secure row-level data so that, for example, the

United States manager can see only his own sales. This security is implemented through Active

Directory security and security roles on the SSAS database.

You can create security roles in BIDS as a developer or in Management Studio as a DBA. If you

operate in Management Studio you must worry about becoming out of sync with the project

and being overwritten by the developer. No matter the location, drill down to the Roles folder ...