SQL Server Analysis Services 2005/2008 articles,blogs,scripts,FAQs,tools,books

Microsoft just posted new set of Analysis Services 2005/2008 samples at codeplex:

ASLoadSim

Main library used by the Visual Studio for Testers to generate the MDX query load for Analysis Services server. This project was released before.

ASQueryGen

Console application to generate XML files with MDX queries to be used by the ASLoadSim library. This project was released before.

CompressManyToMany (New)

This project creates a utility that enables you to easily implement the many-to-many compression technique discussed in the Analysis Services Many-to-Many Dimensions: Query Performance Optimization Techniques best practices white paper. You can download this white paper from the SQL Server Best Practices web site at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb671430.aspx

LoadTestReports

Reporting Services project to review the results of the simulation (logged to a SQL Server database). This project was released before.

MonitoringSSAS (New)

From documentation: This document explains how to set up the following components to analyze SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 Profiler trace files to locate queries and processing jobs with performance issues and to begin to understand the source of these performance problems.

• Trace definition file. There is a SQL Server 2005 and a SQL Server 2008 CTP6 version of this template.
• SQL Server management data warehouse for storing trace data from multiple servers, databases, and cubes into a central location
• A Transact-SQL script for copying data from an existing trace table (either an active table or an archived table) into the SQL Server management data warehouse
• SQL Server Integration Services packages and csv files for populating the EventClass and EventSubclass tables with data to assist in interpreting the trace files. Currently, there are only packages for SQL Server 2008 CTP6.
• SQL Server Integration Services packages for processing the trace data from multiple servers, databases, and cubes into tables for additional analysis. There are SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 CTP6 versions of these packages.
• Reporting Services Reports for analyzing MDX query and processing performance. Currently, there are only reports for SQL Server 2008 CTP6. SQL Server 2005 reports will be added in the next few weeks.

Powershell_Scripts_For_SSAS_DMVs (New)

These sample scripts demonstrate how to use Powershell to query SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services DMV's. The four sample scripts enable you to cancel all queries running longer than a specified length of time, cancel a particular session/SPID/connection, retrieve the Analysis Services version, retrive a list of Analysis Services database sizes or return the results of any DMV query.

RssStyleSheet

Auxilary file to be used by reporting services to define the report format

SSAS_Processing_Log (New)

For auditing and troubleshooting purposes, you may wish to utilize a system-wide processing log file. This Codeplex project contains two XMLA scripts, CreateProcessingLog.xmla  creates a system-wide processing log file and DeleteProcessingLog.xmla  deletes the system-wide processing log file. You can execute these scripts either interactively using SQL Management Studio or scheduled with SQL Agent.

CreateProcessingLog.xmla defines the events and columns to be logged, for a processing log you need EventIDs 5 and 6, and then defines the columns for these events to be logged. This script logs to C:\OLAP_Processing.trc to a maximum size of 50 MB and then will automatically rollover to a new file when that size is reached.

Download this new set of samples from here.