【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 otTable uses PivotTable Service and requires that PivotTable Service be installed before it will run. But the OWC PivotTable works without Excel. PivotTable can retrieve multidimensional data from an Analysis server and present the data in an interactive, draganddrop interface. Users who have Microsoft Inter Explorer (IE) or later can use OWC to analyze Analysis Services data without installing additional ponent software. Figure 2 shows the OWC PivotTable client interface, which looks and 畢業(yè)設(shè)計(jì) (文獻(xiàn)翻譯 ) 第 9 頁 works like the familiar Excel interface. The OWC PivotTable also provides intelligent caching, which improves performance by reducing the number of trips PivotTable makes through the work to the server. So by actively working with Analysis Services, PivotTable can reduce data transfer and work faster. Although OWC provided everything our development team39。s project needed, we encountered problems when we tried to deploy OWC across the Inter. The first problem was the platform that OWC runs on. The Office XP version of OWC requires Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) or later. Many of the service subscribers use Windows NT Workstation as their OS, and to install MDAC , they also had to install Service Pack 6 (SP6). One of the primary attractions of using OWC was that we thought deployment would be seamless. We discovered that although we could automate the process of installing service packs, the process requires reboots and is intrusive. Microsoft later provided a revised version of the OWC ponent that works with SP4, but at the time we were developing our application, the deployment of service packs in the tightly controlled client work of a financial institution was a significant barrier. Thus, a solution that required a specific service pack for the OS wasn39。t a viable option. The second problem that our team encountered was connectivity. OWC requires a direct connection to the Analysis Services data source. OWC municates directly with the Analysis server through the default port, 2725, which is a problem for anizations with firewalls. (For details about connecting to Analysis Services, see the Microsoft article INF: TCP Ports Used by OLAP Services when Connecting Through a Firewall at First, we tried to solve the connectivity problem by using an HTTP connection to connect to the server through port 80. This connection provides access through the same port that the Web browser uses. For added security, Analysis Services can alternatively connect through port 443 by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Most anizations open both port 80 and port 443 to let users access the Inter. (For more information about using HTTP, see the Microsoft article INF: How to Connect to Analysis Services 2021 By Using HTTP Connection at Figure 3 畢業(yè)設(shè)計(jì) (文獻(xiàn)翻譯 ) 第 10 頁 illustrates the challenges involved in using OWC to connect to the Analysis server. However, the implementation of HTTP connectivity created some insurmountable obstacles. Connections through port 80 were significantly slower than direct connections in our tests. Because the multidimensional cube has to provide large amounts of data to the client, the performance degradation made using OWC impractical. Looking for Alternatives Next, our team considered using ADOMD and MDX queries to create a custom interface. You can query the Analysis Services cube directly through the OPENROWSET mand. (For information about querying Analysis Services, see the Microsoft article HOWTO: SQL Server 7 Distributed Query with OLAP Server at OPENROWSET lets you query data from any OLE DB source, including Analysis Services. This flexibility would let us use ADO to query Analysis Services. The OLE DB provider for Analysis Services, MSOLAP, converts the multidimensional data into a standard rowset that ADO can use to municate the data to the frontend application. The problem with this custom solution was the plexity of creating an interface that provided the intuitive, interactive look and feel of OWC and Excel. Although the team was capable of creating such an interface, the time, expense, and ongoing maintenance of such a solution made it prohibitive. The team also investigated several thirdparty solutions. Many thirdparty solutions help users build a query and execute it to see the results. Such an approach uses system resources efficiently but isn39。t as interactive as the Excel and OWC draganddrop interfaces. So although these solutions offered unique advantages, none met