How to Monitor SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)

Welcome the Foglight data solutions. This video will detail how to monitor SQL Server Analysis Services. My name is John Sakalauskas, and I'm a Technical Product Specialist for the Foglight product. SQL Server Analysis Services-- SSAS-- is an online analytical processing and data mining tool in Microsoft SQL Server. SSAS is a Business Intelligence-- BI-- tool used by organizations to analyze and make sense of information possibly spread out across multiple databases, or in disparate files and tables. The SSAS agent requires using SQL PI capabilities and a SQL Server repository. Please refer to the deployment guide for the required resources, as well as the requirements listed below. To create an agent to monitor SQL Server Analysis Services, log into the Foglight console. Click Monitor, SQL Server BI, Analysis Services. A pop-up window will appear. The Agent Manager Host field allows the user to select where to host the monitoring agent. Click the name of the default agent manager host in blue. A pop-up will appear to allow the user to choose an agent manager. Multiple entries will appear if more than one agent manager reports into the FMS. Connection Details holds the name of the Analysis Services instance to be monitored. An information i is available with more information about this field. Under Connection Details, type the server name. If the server name includes the named instance, separate it with a backslash, such as server name backslash instance. Login credentials is used to specify the log in credentials, or to use an account already used by the agent manager. This can be a Windows user account, or the account running the agent manager. An information i is available with more details. Enter the login credentials. A checkbox is available to choose to automatically generate an agent name, or to enter a unique name. Next, click the blue text specify the OS credentials. Enter the OS credential if it's different than the instance login credentials. You can also use the credentials from the Foglight stored credentials. Stored credentials can be used instead of providing username and password. The SQL PI Repository is required for SSAS monitoring. Click the blue text under Analysis Services PI to accept the license agreement, and click the Accept button. Click the Monitor button to begin the installation process. The next pop-up may list prerequisites for the SQL PI repository server, and the available agent managers for SQL PI agents to be installed on. Select an agent manager, then click the Apply button. If prompted, we will now specify the server name, authentication type, username, and password. If the default instance is used, than it does not have to be included with the server name. Adding the port number's optional. Then click Next. Another pop-up to enter the SQL PI Repository settings may appear. A new PI Repository database can be created in this step. The database name is pre-filled with a unique name. Adding a primary file group location and the transaction log location is optional, or it'll be taken from the SQL Server instance settings. The user must, however, fill in a specific Windows folder location on the server where the SQL PI instance is located to hold [INAUDIBLE] data. This may be on a separate drive from the other SQL server files. Alternatively, a radio buttons available to use an existing PI Repository database for SQL Server, with a pull-down menu to select a database. After this panel's been filled in, click Finish to continue. An additional pop-up may appear to confirm that a new PI Repository for SQL Server should be created. After some time, a pop-up will appear to confirm that the Analysis Service monitoring agent has been successfully created. Click a button to either monitor another service, or to finish. The new Analysis Services agent will be added to the database's dashboard, and after a few minutes, the metrics will begin to appear. To learn more about Foglight for databases, visit us at support.quest.com. For quick support questions, follow us @QuestExperts on Twitter.