Category: Administartion

Administartion, BISM Multidimensional, SQL Server Analysis Services - SSAS

An Easy Way for SSAS Batch Processing

Batch processing is available in Analysis Services. Which means we can send multiple processing commands to the server in just a single SQL Server Job. With SSAS batch processing we can control which objects to be processed and in what order in a batch.  As batch processing reduces the amount of time taken to commit changes it offers better data availability. We can easily generate XMLA codes  for batch processing through SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio). You might see lots of discussions about this in other websites and lots of them are saying you need to right click on the objects one by one and generate the scripts. Then put all scripts together in another XMLA script. But it is such a pain when you have lots of objects that should be selected one after another to generate the batch processing XMLA. Sadly, it is not the end of the story. You need put all scripts together by copying and pasting the scripts several times. Today I want to show you a very easy to the job which saves lots of your time.

I’m using “Adventure Works 2012 Multidimensional” as an example and I’m going to batch process some dimensions.

  • Connect to the SSAS server from Management Studio
  • Expand the database
  • Expand dimensions

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Administartion, SQL Server, T-SQL

How to manage the user access rights to see database views but not source tables using T-SQL

Problem:

There is a group of users that are not intended to have direct read access to the database tables. There are some predefined database views that the users should be able to see the data through those views. In our case, the users shouldn’t be able to even see the tables in SSMS or through any applications that can connect to the database. Additionally, the users should be as restricted as possible. For instance, they shouldn’t even know what the source table names are. So SYS or INFORMATION_SCHEMA should not show any additional information.

Solution:

The best possible way to achieve the goals is that we create a new database role and define the users as members of the new database role. We create a database role very easily though SSMS, but, if we have lots of views and we want to define accesses through the UI it would be a time consuming process. In addition, it increases the risk of human faults during setting up the configuration.

A very simple way is to use the following T-SQL script that will create a database role, it will also add the views as the role’s securables and it will grant the sufficient access rights so that any users that are members of the role be able to see the views. They’ll be also able to execute the views and see the results. You just need to make sure that the users are not members of some other roles that have overlap with the new role’s permissions.

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Administartion, SQL Server, T-SQL

How to query extended properties

If you are working in a company that your managers are getting database documentation seriously, thumbs up! One of the ways to write useful documentation that is really effective is using SQL Server extended properties.

We can add extended properties to almost all SQL Server objects by right clicking on the object-> select properties-> select “Extended Properties” and add new properties to the object.

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So, after adding the new properties we might need to query those properties in the future.

Executing the following T-SQL script retrieves what we need:

select O.name ObjectName, e.name PropertyName, value

from sys.extended_properties e inner join sys.objects o on e.major_id=o.object_id

 

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All done!

Administartion, SQL Server, T-SQL

How to store a SQL Server database diagram into a file and share it with others?

Sometimes you might feel you need to store the database diagrams in a file basis. I’ve faced to this feeling specially when I was testing some databases which were under development. I didn’t like to create the whole database diagrams that I’ve created before in a database that a new version of it is newly released for testing as it is a kind of rework and it is a time consuming process. So I decided to store the database diagrams in a file system basis that I can reuse it again and again. The following solution could be great for sharing the database diagrams in the development team as well by sending them the diagram file by email and/or storing the database diagram file in a network shared folder. Here is a work around that might help you. First of all you should install diagram support in your database. To do so just right click on the database diagrams in object explorer in SQL Server Management Studio and select “Install Diagram Support”.

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