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)

empty cellset issue with mdx in reporting services 2005

Hi all,
I am using reporting services 2005 based on analysis services 2005 cubes
datasource. I use oledb provider and connect to analysis services 9.0. I am
writing an expression in dataset which will evaluate to mdx query during
runtime. Now the issue is if the generated dynamic query cannot product even
a single row because of slicer, then I get an ugly error message.
If in a sql statement, the where clause we include make the query return
zero rows, then you wont see any data for your report, but you dont see an
error. But here in RS with mdx, you are getting error. How to avoid this? Is
there any work around available to solve this issue while creating datasets.
Thanks.Hello,
Thank you for your post in MSDN newsgroup!
To understand the issue better, I'd like to know the following information:
1. What is the exact error message you encountered? Is is saying there are
multiple measures in the WHERE clause even though there is only one
measure? If so, this shall be known issue in AS 2005.
2. Does the issue occur if you run the MDX directly on SSMS? If you use
"Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services" instead of OlEDB provider for
Analysis Service, does the issue still occur?
3. If the error message is different from that mentioned above, will you
provide us a simple sample project by using Adventure works sample
database, so that we may be able to reproduce the issue on our side? YOu
could send it to me at petery@.microsoft.com.
If you have other related information, please also let's know.
Best Regards,
Peter Yang
MCSE2000/2003, MCSA, MCDBA
Microsoft Online Partner Support
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==================================================This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.|||Hi,
Just want to check in if you have further questions on the issue. Please
feel free to post back if need any help.
Best Regards,
Peter Yang
MCSE2000/2003, MCSA, MCDBA
Microsoft Online Partner Support
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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