Karan Gulati (SSAS Maestro)

Problem Description:

Analysis Services is crashing intermittently and also producing min-dumps.

Assessment:

This could be one of the issues. For getting full analysis of Mini-Dump you can involve Microsoft Customer Support Services and ask them to analyze dumps.

In this case we found:

The issue is SMS client (CcmExce) does software inventory periodically, and it scans the data folder of Analysis Services. When a job needs to commit, it has to delete older version of data files. At the moment, the SMS client has a file handle on some of the database files, causing SSAS unable to delete the older version of the database, so commit fails and crashes SSAS

As you can see in this Process Monitor – CcmExec is browsing through SQL Folders:

Resolution

We have resolved issue by making an exception in SMS client not to browse / scan SSAS Folders
– Data
– Temp
– Config
– Log

Recommendations

Exclude Analysis Services folders from Virus Scans, File Monitoring Tools, Systems Management Server Client – CcmExec.exe or any other 3p File Monitoring or File Backup Tool.

For SQL engine follow recommendations are given in this link – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309422

https://india.msteched.com/#agenda

Look for the SQL Developer track. If you are at TechEd, do join.

From straightforward client/server designs to complex architectures relying on distributed Windows services, SharePoint applications, Web services, and data sources, Microsoft BI solutions can pose many challenges to seamless user authentication and end-to-end identity delegation. SQL Server technologies and data providers expect to use Windows authentication while SharePoint Server uses Web Services Security (WS-Security). Flowing a user identity from a Windows or browser-based BI client application through a claims-based SharePoint service to a Windows backend system is not always possible due to various limitations in data providers, security protocols, and identity services. Network, forest, and federation topologies also influence the authentication flows. Familiarity with the authentication protocols and capabilities, delegation limitations, and possible workarounds is an indispensable prerequisite to delivering a positive BI user experience across the entire Microsoft BI solution stack in enterprise environments.

To review the document, please download the Microsoft BI Authentication and Identity Delegation Word document.

Symptoms:

SSAS Named Instance running on cluster with two nodes, on one instance we are able to connect SSAS using Name Instance but when you failover to other node and try to connect we get error message

SSAS Cluster Virtual Server Name – SSASVirtualServer

Instance is MySSAS

Two Nodes:

NodeA

NodeB

When NodeA is owner of SSASVirtualServer and we connect SSASVirtualServer\MySSAS it works but when we failover SSASVirtualServer to NodeB and try to connect  SSASVirtualServer\MySSAS it fails with error:

A connection cannot be made to redirector. Ensure that ‘SQL Browser’ service is running.

 

Cause:

The startup of SQL Browser account does not have permission to access msmdredir.ini. The startup account of SQL Browser should have both Read and Write permission to the ASconfig folder or its child objects.
By default, the SQL Browser will periodically check and update the 90\Shared\ASConfig\msmdredir.ini file to ensure it knows the named instance SSAS info(port..etc) and it will translate client who needs to connect to the named instance SSAS to the correct name and port.

Solution:

a. If the SQL Browser is running under "NT Authority \local service" account, ensure the account has permission (read/write) to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\ASConfig folder and its child objects. If the SQL Browser is run under other account, please ensure the same.

b. If you are not sure about permission change from Local Service to Local System and restart services.

Today, we have resolved issue of same nature – thanks Saman Alaghehband for his time and patience

Note: On Cluster Environment it is always recommended to connect using SSAS Virtual Server Name

Refer:

SQL Server Analysis Services Port (SQL 2005 / 2008)

In this SQL Query we are grouping Sales by Year and Color plus adding a filter of 5000

select CalendarYear,color,sum(SalesAmount) from [DimProduct] join FactInternetSales
on DimProduct.[ProductKey]=FactInternetSales.[ProductKey]
join DimDate
on dimdate.datekey=FactInternetSales.OrderDatekey
Group by CalendarYear,color
Having sum(salesamount)>5000
order by CalendarYear,color

Equivalent Dax of achieving same is:

evaluate( filter (summarize (‘Internet Sales’, ‘Date'[Calendar Year],
‘Product'[Color] ,"Sales Amount",sum(‘Internet Sales'[Sales Amount]))
,Calculate(sum(‘Internet Sales'[Sales Amount]))>5000))
order by ‘Date'[Calendar Year],
‘Product'[Color]

   1:  [Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.AnalysisServices")

   2:  $ServerName = ".\sql2008r2"

   3:  $DB = "Adventure Works DW 2008"

   4:  $Server = New-Object Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Server

   5:  $Server.Connect($ServerName)

   6:  $SSASDatabase = $Server.Databases.Item($DB)

   7:  $SSASDatabase.Roles | Select Name, Members
 

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Applies to: SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services, Tabular Solutions

Summary: Provides guidance for estimating the hardware requirements needed to support processing and query workloads for an Analysis Services tabular solution.

Download from here (Hardware Sizing a Tabular Solution (SQL Server Analysis Services) Word document.