Analysis Services Data Source
Overview
In a [[SQL Server Analysis Services|SQL Server Analysis Services (SSQL)]] database, a data source is a relational database that provides data for the Analysis Services database's [[Dimension|dimensions]] and [[Measure Group|measure groups]]. The data source is an object in the Analysis Services database; the object specifies a provider and connection string to use to connect to the data source. Microsoft supports a wide variety of data source providers for several of the most popular relational database management systems.
An Analysis Services database can contain multiple data sources, so that some objects in the database draw their data from one data source, while other objects draw their data from a different data source. The data sources can use different providers. The result is that Analysis Services can unify data from multiple relational data sources into a single location and data model: the [[Unified Dimensional Model]].
Analysis Services needs credentials to connect to a data source. Most data sources support the concept of a login and password, and the Analysis Services database developer specifies these in the connection string of the data source. Some data sources (notably, Microsoft SQL Server) support integrated authentication, where authentication is performed by a third party (usually Windows) and the data source accepts an authentication token from the third party. In these cases, Analysis Services can impersonate a Windows user before connecting to the data source, so that it can connect as a user who is authorized to access the relational data source. Developers can specify impersonation options for a data source in Analysis Services. A common mistake when configuring the impersonation information is to specify a login and password (e.g. a SQL Server login and password) for the data source; instead, developers should specify a Windows user name and password, which Analysis Services will impersonate before it attempts to connect to the data source with integrated authentication.
See Also
- [[SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)]]
- [[Unified Dimensional Model]]
- SQL Server Overview
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