Encryption for SSAS

I wonder if someone could give some pointers here.

I do have to offer cubes through a firewall to the outside for colleagues working at clients' locations. Therefore, I chose to use the HTML feature of SSAS, I use IIS to host the msmdpump.dll and secure the access through Windows User Accounts with password. There is no encryption on this channel.

I know how to set up certificates in Windows2003 and IIS to protect Websites and access them through HTTPS (SSL). I would really want to use the same for my SSAS, but whenever I shift to SSL on Port 443 I cannot connect with my Excel to the SSAS. A web page in the same folder as the msmdpump.dll is still accessible, so the certificate is installed and distributed to the client correctly, and the IIS setup should be fine as well.

Can anybody tell me if that IS possible at all and I am missing anything to configure, or if SSAS through IIS + SSL is not possible at all?

In a related topic, I read that SSAS does support encryption in native, I looked up the property in my standard version and it is enabled. However, our Sysadmin was able to read quite clear text when we communicate internally with SSAS on its native 2386 port.

I have not looked into that since the solution above would be far better for me, but I wonder if there is an explanation of the behaviour.

For the record: That is Win2003 Server with SQL 2005 and SP1 installed. German language version of both OS and SQL, and SQL is the standard Edition.

I read that SSAS does support encryption in native, I looked up the property in my standard version and it is enabled. However, our Sysadmin was able to read quite clear text when we communicate internally with SSAS on its native 2386 port.

I doubt your sysadmin was able to read clear text in the default installation. All communications are encrypted by default. See this blog post for more details: http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/mosha/archive/2005/12/02/as2005_protocol.aspx

Can anybody tell me if that IS possible at all and I am missing anything to configure, or if SSAS through IIS + SSL is not possible at all?

Yes it is possible - I saw it working before. Of course, troubleshooting such issues could be very difficult, because they depend a lot on the environment setup :(

HTH,

Mosha (http://www.mosha.com/msolap)