Gemini and SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup

blog@tobo.ch — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:27:38 GMT

While installing the August CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2 I recognized a new dialog in the setup-wizard.

This dialog allows selecting between two roles. One is to install SQL Server Features – for example if you install a new SQL Server. And the other one if you want to install Gemini in a SharePoint Farm.

I will do the Gemini installation as soon as possible, an will let you know about the facts in my blog.

Technorati-Tags: SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP Gemini

MDX LinkSet

blog@tobo.ch — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 13:55:00 GMT

While implementing dynamic dimension data security in Analysis Services 2005 I ran into a problem with linking members of a set into another hierarchy. My problem was that I needed a set of members from a specific hierarchy "A" to specify the allowed member set of the dimension hierarchy "A". Unfortunately it wasn't possible to get the members from the hierarchy "A". It was only possible to get them from another hierarchy "B" of the same dimension.

As you possibly know, there is a nice MDX function LinkMember, which can be used to do exactly this kind of conversion between hierarchies. Sadly, you can only link one member, but not a whole set of members.

I've searched a long time to find a solution for this problem, but couldn't find something. As far as I know, there is no possibility to do this in MDX, so I wrote my own LinkSet function in a .NET assembly. The following code-listing shows how I did that. I know there is possibly a better and more flexible solution, but it works for my requirements.

public static Set LinkSet(Set set, Hierarchy hierarchy)
{
    SetBuilder sbReturn = new SetBuilder();
    foreach(Tuple currentTuple in set.Tuples)
    {
        Expression exp = new Expression(hierarchy.UniqueName + ".[" + currentTuple.Members[0].Caption + "]");
        Tuple newTuple = exp.CalculateMdxObject(null).ToTuple();
        sbReturn.Add(newTuple);
    }

return sbReturn.ToSet();
}

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Analysis Services, MDX, OLAP