Script dimensions using Windows PowerShell and AMO

Part 1 of this series on “Microsoft Windows PowerShell and SQL Server 2008 AMO” illustrated how to install Windows PowerShell and connect to an Analysis Service Servername. Part 2 illustrated how to use Windows PowerShell and AMO to get the various Server properties of SQL Server Analysis Service. Part 3 discussed how to use Windows PowerShell and AMO to get database properties of SQL Server Analysis Service and Part 4 illustrated how to create Analysis Service Database using Windows PowerShell and AMO. Part 5 illustrated how to backup an Analysis Service database using Windows PowerShell and SQL Server 2008 AMO. Part 6 of this article series illustrated how to restore an Analysis Service database from a backup file with no password protection. Part 7 discussed how to restore an analysis service Database from a database backup file with password protection. Part 8 covered how to process a dimension in Analysis Service databasej and Part 9 illustrated how to process a single cube and also process the entire Analysis Service database. Part 10 examined the various types of detach and attach methods to detach and attach an Analysis service database.

This installment is going to illustrate how to script dimension from a SQL Server Analysis Service instance to XMLA format file.

Let's begin by connecting to the Analysis Service server “PowerServer\SQL2008” using Windows PowerShell and AMO as shown below. [Refer Figure 1.0] Here you are loading the Analysis Service Manage object DLL and connecting to the Analysis Service server instance “SQL2008” on the “PowerServer3” host.

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::
	 LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.AnalysisServices") >$NULL
$server = New-Object Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Server
$server.connect("PowerServer3\SQL2008")

Now let us list all of the databases available on the Analysis server “PowerServer\SQL2008” as shown below. [Refer Figure 1.1]

$database=$server.databases
$database|select-object name

Result

Name
----
Advent2
Adventure Works 2008 DW
Adventure Works 2008 -3
AAA
Adventure Works Test
Adventure Works 2008 -2
MyCube
xyz
Marketing
Finance1
Finance2
Finance3
Marketing1
MyDb123

Now let's connect to the database “Adventure Works 2008 -2” on the Analysis Service instance “SQL2008” on the host “PowerServer3” as shown below. [Refer Figure 1.2]

$advdb=$database["Adventure Works 2008 -2"]

Let's assign the dimension object Employee to the EmployeeDim variable as shown below.

$EmployeeDim = $advdb.dimensions.FindByName("Employee")

Prepare and set up the Scripter Object as shown below.

$stringbuilder = new-Object System.Text.StringBuilder
$stringwriter = new-Object System.IO.StringWriter($stringbuilder)
$xmlOut = New-Object System.Xml.XmlTextWriter($stringwriter)
$xmlOut.Formatting = [System.Xml.Formatting]::Indented
$scriptObject = New-Object Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Scripter

Now let's use the scriptCreate method to generate the script for creating the dimension Employee as shown below.

$MSASObject=[Microsoft.AnalysisServices.MajorObject[]] @($EmployeeDim)
$ScriptObject.ScriptCreate($MSASObject,$xmlOut,$false)

Store the generated XML to a file using the PowerShell cmdlet Out-File, as shown below.

$stringbuilder.ToString() |out-file -filepath c:\AdventDb_Employee_Dim.xmla

You could open and see the content of the file c:\AdventDb_Employee_Dim.xmla as shown below. [Figure 1.3]

<Create xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine">
  <ParentObject>
    <DatabaseID>Adventure Works 2008 -2</DatabaseID>
  </ParentObject>
  <ObjectDefinition>
    <Dimension xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	  xmlns:ddl2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine/2"
	  xmlns:ddl2_2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine/2/2" 
	  xmlns:ddl100_100="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2008/engine/100/100">
      <ID>Dim Employee</ID>
      <Name>Employee</Name>
      <Annotations>
        <Annotation>
          <Name>http://schemas.microsoft.com/DataWarehouse/Designer/1.0:UseDiagramDefaultLayout</Name>
          <Value>true</Value>
        </Annotation>
        <Annotation>
          <Name>http://schemas.microsoft.com/DataWarehouse/Designer/1.0:ShowRelationshipNames</Name>
          <Value>false</Value>
        </Annotation>
        <Annotation>
...
..
..
..
..
      <ProactiveCaching>
        <SilenceInterval>-PT1S</SilenceInterval>
        <Latency>-PT1S</Latency>
        <SilenceOverrideInterval>-PT1S</SilenceOverrideInterval>
        <ForceRebuildInterval>-PT1S</ForceRebuildInterval>
        <Source xsi:type="ProactiveCachingInheritedBinding" />
      </ProactiveCaching>
    </Dimension>
  </ObjectDefinition>
</Create>

Let's create the PowerShell script C:\AMOScripts\Generate_Dim_Script.ps1 that would generate the script for any dimension in any database. Copy and paste the below given code to C:\AMOScripts\Generate_Dim_Script.ps1. [Refer Figure 1.4]

param
(
[string] $servername,
[string] $databasename,
[string] $dimensionname,
[string] $location
)

[string] $mydate=date
$mydate=$mydate.replace(":"," ")
$mydate=$mydate.replace("/"," ")
$mydate="_" +$mydate.replace(" ","_")

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.AnalysisServices") >$NULL
$server = New-Object Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Server
$server.connect($ServerName)

$database=$server.databases


$advdb=$database["$databasename"]

$EmployeeDim = $advdb.dimensions.FindByName("$dimensionname")



$stringbuilder = new-Object System.Text.StringBuilder
$stringwriter = new-Object System.IO.StringWriter($stringbuilder)
$xmlOut = New-Object System.Xml.XmlTextWriter($stringwriter)
$xmlOut.Formatting = [System.Xml.Formatting]::Indented
$scriptObject = New-Object Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Scripter


$MSASObject=[Microsoft.AnalysisServices.MajorObject[]] @($EmployeeDim)

$ScriptObject.ScriptCreate($MSASObject,$xmlOut,$false)
$filename=$location+$dimensionname+"_"+$mydate+"_dim.xmla"
$stringbuilder.ToString() |out-file -filepath $filename

Now let's get to the C:\AMOScripts location using set-location cmdlet as shown below.

Set-Location C:\AmoScripts

Execute the C:\AMOScripts\Generate_Dim_Script.ps1 with Servername “PowerServer3\SQL2008”, database name “Adventure Works 2008 -2”, dimension name “Geography” and with the location name “C:\Data\” as shown below. [Refer Figure 1.5]

.\Generate_Dim_Script.ps1 "PowerServer3\SQL2008" "Adventure Works 2008 -2" "Geography" "C:\Data\"

When the script is executed, you see that the XMLA format file for the dimension Geography is generated under C:\Data folder as shown below. [Refer Fig 1.6]

You could open and see the content of the file

c:\data\ Geography__04_08_2009_20_26_02_dim.xmla as shown below. [Figure 1.7]

<Create xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine">
  <ParentObject>
    <DatabaseID>Adventure Works 2008 -2</DatabaseID>
  </ParentObject>
  <ObjectDefinition>
    <Dimension xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	  xmlns:ddl2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine/2"
	  xmlns:ddl2_2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine/2/2" 
	  xmlns:ddl100_100="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2008/engine/100/100">
      <ID>Dim Geography</ID>
      <Name>Geography</Name>
      <Annotations>
        <Annotation>
          <Name>http://schemas.microsoft.com/DataWarehouse/Designer/1.0:UseDiagramDefaultLayout</Name>
          <Value>true</Value>
        </Annotation>
        <Annotation>
          <Name>http://schemas.microsoft.com/DataWarehouse/Designer/1.0:ShowRelationshipNames</Name>
          <Value>false</Value>
        </Annotation>
        <Annotation>
...
...
...
...
      <ProactiveCaching>
        <SilenceInterval>-PT1S</SilenceInterval>
        <Latency>-PT1S</Latency>
        <SilenceOverrideInterval>-PT1S</SilenceOverrideInterval>
        <ForceRebuildInterval>-PT1S</ForceRebuildInterval>
        <Source xsi:type="ProactiveCachingInheritedBinding" />
      </ProactiveCaching>
    </Dimension>
  </ObjectDefinition>
</Create>

Notice also that the file name is generated on the fly with the dimension name and time stamp.

Conclusion

This article has illustrated how to generate a script for given dimension of the Analysis Service database.

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