CubeSlice Ready to Test Local Cube Creation in SQL Server 2008 (Katmai)

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:06:23 GMT

Yesterday we released Build 125 of CubeSlice 9 - the first public build that can be used with the Community Technology Previews of SQL Server 2008 (Katmai). We have tested this build with CTP4, which was released in June 2007. Please let us know of any issues you find when using CubeSlice with the SQL Server 2008 CTP's. We want to be ready to provide full support for the creation of local cubes in SQL Server 2008 as soon as it is released.

Creating multiple local cube files with slices determined by a formula

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:48:15 GMT

A group of developers from a large company asked me today how to divide up the creation of local cube files across multiple instances of CubeSlice, because they want to create as many local cubes as possible simultaneously. The members of this slicing attribute change weekly - with new members being added and existing members being dropped.

This is the type of situation where it's useful to use calculations to create the different sets of local cubes. Each CUS file would create a subset of all the local cubes. The formulas would be designed so that together they would create local cube files for all of the desired slicers.

The calculation you use to create the slices can be any valid MDX set formula. Here are some examples from the Adventure Works sample database:

1. Use the children function to create a set of slices for State/Province. Create the local cubes for each country in a separate CUS file.

[Customer].[Australia].children

2. You can do the same thing by referencing an attribute that is related to the attribute you are using for slicing. This formula can be used even when these attributes are not used as levels in a hierarchy. In this particular example, this formula gives the same result as the children function.

filter
(
[Customer].[State-Province].members,
[Customer].[State-Province].CurrentMember.Properties("Country") = "Australia"
)

3. You could also divide the set of members into subsets by referencing the names of the members. This example would include all the country/provinces that start with either A, B, or C.

filter
(
[Customer].[State-Province].members,
[Customer].[State-Province].currentmember.name > "a"
and [Customer].[State-Province].currentmember.name < "d"
)

Creating and Distributing Customized Local Cubes for Each Sales Region

Thu, 24 May 2007 20:46:50 GMT

I have been asked to give a step-by-step description of how CubeSlice can be used to create and distribute customized local cubes for each sales region. This description is for creating local cubes from Analysis Services in SQL Server 2005. CubeSlice will do the same thing when using SQL Server 2000, but the options are a little different.

Are the local cubes that you want to create for different users identical except that each one is for a different sales region? Are sales regions defined as a level or as an attribute in your cube?

If so, you can use this strategy. If not, you can still create separate cubes for each user, but you will have to customize the cubes and views individually for each one.

1. Open the CubeSlice Creator and start a new CUS file. Add a connection and a view.

2. Go to the Local Cubes to Create tab and open the Local Cube Options form. Go to the Members tab.

3. Add a slicer on sales regions. Choose the appropriate slicing option. The first two choices create single local cube files, while the third, fourth, and fifth choices create multiple local cubes, as follows:

Create separate cubes for every member of the attribute/level. This choice will create a separate local cube for every sales region.
Create separate cubes for each included member. This choice allows you to pick the individual sales regions for which you want to create a local cube.
Create separate cube for each member selected by calculation. This choice would allow you to create separate cubes for the top ten sales regions or for all the regions within a particular district or for regions defined by some other formula.

4. After adding the slicer you will get a message asking if you want to use the same slicer on all other cubes that have the same dimension and attribute. Choose yes if you are creating several local cubes for different views for each user. The slicing choices you have made will be automatically applied to all the other cubes.

5. Go to the Measure Groups tab. You may want to remove the dimension that has Sales Regions. Because each local cube will have only a single Sales Region, the dimension is not really needed in the local cube.

6. Go to the General tab. Review the choice for Cube Syntax.

Use ASSL from Relational Source is usually the better choice. It supports more local cube features and it can make smaller, better performing local cube files.
Use ASSL form OLAP Source is the only choice you can use if you do not have access to the source relational database. It is also the only choice that supports the creation of local cubes from cubes with linked measure groups or linked dimensions. You may choose this option because you don’t want to use processing time in the relational database to create local cube files.

7. NOTE: This option is being included in our next build. It is not in the current build. On the General tab, also consider the checkbox Remove members not used in any included measure group, except in time dimensions. Removing unused members can greatly reduce the size of a local cube that is being sliced.

8. Make any other choices you want in the Local Cube Options form. Save and close the form.

9. On the Views tab of the CubeSlice Creator, switch to a local connection. The local cube for the first sales region will be created. Create the view the way you want your users to initially see the cube data. Make sure you do it in a way that will be good for all sales regions and not just the sales region you are looking at now.

10. Add additional local cubes and views if you want to do so. You can create several views that are connected to a single local cube. However, it is often better to create a separate local cube for each view. CubeSlice can load all the views at the same time – but only if there’s a separate local cube for each one. If not, the user will have to wait as they move from one view to the other for one view to be unloaded and the other view to be loaded.

11. Go to the File Creation tab. Choose which files you want to create for distributing the local cubes. More on that choice below.

12. Push the Create Files button. A full set of files will be created for each sales region, including all the local cube files and all the other files you have selected. The name of the sales region will be included in each file name, so that you can distinguish the files from one another.

13. Choose File-Save to save the CubeSlice Specfication (CUS) file you have created. This CUS file will save all the choices you have made in setting up the local cubes and views.

14. The next time you want to create this same set of local cube files you can open the CubeSlice Creator, select this CUS file, and push the Create Files button. If you want to automate the creation of the files, you can call the CubeSlice Creator from a scheduler or a batch file, specifying the appropriate CUS file, and all the files will be recreated. See the CubeSlice Help file for a description of the parameters that can be used when calling the CubeSlice Creator.

Local Cube Distribution Options

There are three ways of distributing the CubeSlice views and local cubes. They all look the same to the end user once the files are open. There are some differences related to opening the files. Some of our customers also use other OLAP client tools (especially Microsoft Excel) to view their local cubes.

1. Our preferred, or recommended, option is to use CubeSlice Share files. A CubeSlice Share is a self-extracting executable that contains a cuv file and one or more cub files. It also contains a copy of the CubeSlice Viewer so it can be used on machines that do not have CubeSlice Viewer installed. Obviously, opening the file requires running the executable, which can be a problem for some organizations that don't want their users to download, e-mail, or run new executables.

Organizations create and send out new CubeSlice Share files whenever they want their cube data updated.

If users have the CubeSlice Viewer installed, they have more options when using CubeSlice Share files. If they want, they can save the changes they make in the views as they are browsing the local cube files. They can also create new views. These changes in the views can be either saved or discarded when the user receives a new CubeSlice Share file.

2. A second option is to use CubeSlice Data (CUD) files. These are files that have the local cube data and the views included in the same file. They can only be used on a computer that has the CubeSlice Viewer installed. They are larger than CubeSlice Share files, because file compression is not used in creating them. Users can save changes in their views as they are using CubeSlice Data files, but these changes are lost when the CubeSlice Data file is replaced with a new one.

3. A third option is to use a combination of local cube files and CubeSlice View (CUV) files. This option also requires that the CubeSlice Viewer be installed. All the files need to be placed in the same directory on the user's machine.

When using this option, only the local cube files need to be replaced when new data is available.The CubeSlice View files can be sent out once and used repeatedly. Changes the user makes while browsing are all saved in the CUV file.

4. A fourth option is to use local cube files with a different OLAP browser, such as Microsoft Excel. Please note that Microsoft Excel 2007 has a much improved interface for viewing OLAP cubes. When using Microsoft Excel, a set of pivot tables and charts can be created for the users, all hooked up to separate local cube files. When new local cube files are sent out, they have to be placed in the location where Excel expects to find them. When the cubes have been replaced and the workbook is opened, the previous data will be displayed until the user starts browsing, when the new data will be loaded. We also have a macro that can be used when opening the workbook, so that the user sees the data from the new local cubes as soon as the spreadsheet is open (which can prevent a good deal of confusion).

I hope this is helpful for those of you getting started with CubeSlice. CubeSlice has a lot of other options which I haven't mentioned here. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Tim Peterson's BI Performance Blog: Using CubeSlice to Create Local Cube Files

CubeSlice Ready to Test Local Cube Creation in SQL Server 2008 (Katmai)

Creating multiple local cube files with slices determined by a formula

Creating and Distributing Customized Local Cubes for Each Sales Region