Friday 23 February 2018

AAS Snack: process Azure Analysis Services with SSIS

Case
I'm running SSIS and SSAS in Azure. How do I process my tabular model when my ETL has finished? Can I use SSIS to process Azure Analysis Services?
Process Azure Analysis Services



















Solution
One option is to process the Azure Analysis Services (AAS) model is with Azure Automation and a PowerShell Runbook. However the good old Analysis Services Processing Task will also work for AAS and lets you process the model right after the ETL has finished. This post explains how to configure it.

1)  Get AAS Server name
First go to your AAS in the Azure portal and copy the server name from the AAS dashboard. It should look like:
asazure://[region].asazure.windows.net/[Name of Analysis Services Server].
You can also find the models available for processing.
Azure Analysis Services












2) Analysis Services Processing Task
Go to your SSIS project in Visual Studio. Open your SSIS package and add the Analysis Services Processing Task to the Control Flow and give it a descriptive name. Then edit it and optionally add a description.
Add Analysis Services Process Task
















3) New Connection Manager
Go to the Processing Settings page and click on New to add a new Analysis Services Connection Manager. In the textbox for Server or file name you need to enter/paste the server name from step 1. Then enter the email address and password from the user that can process the model. Select the model you want to process and test your connection. Finally press OK (three times) to return to your task editor.
Add new Connection Manager
















4) Object to process
After adding the connection it is time to add one or more objects from your tabular model to process. Press the Add button and select all required objects. For this example the entire model. Then click OK to close the window and change the Process Options, for example to Full Process. Now you are ready to close the Task editor and test it.
Add Object(s) to process
















5) Testing
Now it is time to test the package by executing it. If successful, you can finish the package by renaming the connection manager and adding package parameters to supply the URL, e-mail address and password.
Executing
















Summary
This post showed you how to process an AAS model with a standard SSIS task. More information about deploying to and executing in ADF can be found here.