Creating Analysis Services Cubes - SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Cube Development - page 94

Examining cube file structures
It's time to take a break from SSDT and check what's happening under the hood. Un-
like other database platforms, each SSAS database consists of many files. Analysis
Services does not expose its transaction log, nor does it have system databases as
master or tempdb . Instead, all of the metadata for the entire server resides in the
master.vmp file, which you cannot read or modify. You don't have to know what's
within each database file, but knowing Analysis Services' database file structures can
be very helpful during troubleshooting.
How to do it...
Let's get started; perform the following steps to examine the cube file structure:
1. Each of the Analysis Services instances is associated with a data folder, which
stores files for all the databases found on this instance.
2. All of the SSAS instance configuration properties are stored in the msmd-
srv.ini file found in the CONFIG folder under your Analysis Services install-
ation directory. DataDir is the property that controls the location of the data-
base folders. Each database has its own separate data folder.
3. I will be using the ssas_cookbook_chapter3 database folder as an ex-
ample to demonstrate SSAS file structures. If you have followed along with
the recipes of this chapter, this database should now have several folders and
over 100 files.
4. As seen in the next screenshot, the database folder has separate subfolders
for each dimension, data source, and cube. Additionally, it contains metadata
XML files for dimensions, cube, data source, and data source view.