Best practices of managing meta data

hi all,

What are the best practices of managing meta data for the presentation

layer of AS 2005? Because now we have to take care of all the hierarchy

types, measure grouping and the folders containing those hierarchies

and measures...

regards,

Mahmood

If I understand your question correctly there are several options for you.

If single person develops and maintains database metadata you should use version control integration of Visual Studio to check in and out your Analysis Services project. You use Deployment wizard to deploy your project to the server so that it wouldnt override security roles on your live database.

If several people are working on maintaining metadata of single database, it is better to create a master copy of the database by creating XMLA script of the database. Each person, every time the change would create a project by creating new project based on the live database.

At some point you might decide to setup a test server multiple developers are working against. When the work is finished, you use Synchronization functionality to synch changes from test to production database.

Edward Melomed.
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

|||I am talking about OLAP CUBE metadata...Dimensions, Meausres, hierarchies..

mahmood|||

One way of managing SSAS 2005 metadata is to document it. Here is a link to a tool that gather all metadata in a SSAS 2005 project(http://www.bidocumenter.com/Public/Default.aspx).

The next step is to put this information in a design document that describes name-conventions, cube structures, dimension structures, formulas for calculations, all attributes and formatting of attributes, and security design. Normally you do this in a design document before you build anything.

I recommend you to buy the "Microsoft Data Warehouse tooolkit" from Kimballgroup.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

|||

Not sure I follow your question.

The suggestions above are all regarding OLAP Database and OLAP metadata.

You desing your cube and OLAP Database in BI Dev Studio and then you deploy OLAP database to Analysis Server.You can use source control in BI Dev Studio or generate XMLA scrip of the OLAP database off live server.

Edward Melomed.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.