How to launch MSOLAP cube processing in batch mode?

[Jonathan Yang]

Jonathan Yang Jonathan.Yang@Weyerhaeuser.Com

How to launch MSOLAP cube processing in batch mode?
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When one wants to run SQL Statement or Stored procedure in batch mode, OSQL.exe can be used.

Now we have created OLAP cube and want to process(populate) cube. From MSOLAP Analysis manage we can right click a cube name then click “Process”. But how to do this in batch mode? I.e. any equivalent thing of OSQL.exe to help process cube?

I believe a matured tool should work good in both interactive and batch mode. Unfortunately I did not find how to launch cube processing from MS OLAP documents. Looks like we have to write one using DSO supplied by Microsoft. Do you know if there is any tool for us not to write one? Pls help.

[Mauricio Ikegami]

Hi Jonathan,

I use this method to update all my Olap Cubes and Shared Dimensions daily.
I agree with you about the DTS issues, but after some hard work I realized it is not that bad. In fact, it is flexible enough to accomodate most requirements (and it is an easy tool to transform data - I use it to load most of my olap tables).
Let's take a look of each of your issues:
1. The hard code can be a problem but you can create your connection in an ActiveX script or code one VB program that can update the connection objects thought DSO.
2. DTS is buggy - but if you use only the standard tasks and objects and do not try to code a lot of ActiveX scripts, it usually runs Ok.
3. DTS is really slow when moving and transforming data (that should be expected, since most Data Transformation tools require an agent running in each of your database servers to speed the process up and DTS doesn't), but it is not bad when executing other tasks.

Hope this helps,
Mauricio

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Jonathan Yang at 3/12/01 6:39:42 PM

Thank you, Mauricio.

Did you try this method by yourself. I tried, it did not go through.

In the part, I do not like DTS package for at least those reasons:

1. DTS usually hard codes sever name. This makes multi-site deployment a nightmare.

2. DTS is buggy according to our experience.

3. DTS is slow. (should not be a problem for OLAP processing launch.)


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Mauricio Ikegami at 3/12/01 5:42:33 PM

The easiest way is to create a DTS Package with the Olap Processing Task (to install task object on server: DTSTasks.exe) and schedule it as a job in SQl Agent.

Mauricio

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Jonathan Yang at 3/12/01 1:02:10 PM

Jonathan Yang Jonathan.Yang@Weyerhaeuser.Com

How to launch MSOLAP cube processing in batch mode?
================================================== =

When one wants to run SQL Statement or Stored procedure in batch mode, OSQL.exe can be used.

Now we have created OLAP cube and want to process(populate) cube. From MSOLAP Analysis manage we can right click a cube name then click “Process”. But how to do this in batch mode? I.e. any equivalent thing of OSQL.exe to help process cube?

I believe a matured tool should work good in both interactive and batch mode. Unfortunately I did not find how to launch cube processing from MS OLAP documents. Looks like we have to write one using DSO supplied by Microsoft. Do you know if there is any tool for us not to write one? Pls help.