Backup and Restore Operations - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services - page 799

After you issue this command, any partition that was in the c:\tmp\data folder is restored
into the c:\tmp\data1 folder.

MDX Extensions for Browsing Your File System

Assume that a database administrator, working from a remote computer, needs to create a
backup of a database. This database administrator is not the administrator of the computer
running Analysis Services. It's a good idea to restrict the privileges of the database admin-
istrator rather than have one person serve as both the database administrator and the
computer administrator.

To create the backup file, the database administrator has to specify the path to the backup
file to be created, and that path must be valid for the computer running Analysis Services,
not the remote computer from which the backup command is issued. Therefore, our data-
base administrator needs limited rights to browse the file system on the server.

There are number of typical approaches—that is to say, approaches other than using
Multidimensional Expressions (MDX)—to granting such limited rights. The following list
contains just a few of them, along with some of their disadvantages:

. Create a network share and give the database administrator rights to the share.

The disadvantage of this approach is that it requires the administrator of the server
computer to be present and spend a lot of time managing security for network
shares. It can make the life of security experts a nightmare.

. Create a virtual directory in a local web server and give the database administrator

rights to browse the folders in the virtual directory.

Creating a virtual directory in a web server might not be a bad idea from the
perspective of the network administrator. It's relatively easy to open an HTTP port in
the firewall. However, for a number of reasons, companies find it impractical to run
and maintain a web server on the computer that is dedicated to Analysis Services
operations.

. Give the database administrator full administrative rights to the server computer so

that she can connect through default network shares.

Elevating the privileges of a database administrator to the level of administrator of
the Analysis Server is probably the least time-consuming approach from the perspec-
tive of the Analysis Server administrator. However, we strongly recommend against
this practice from a security perspective. This approach might be tolerated in small
organizations, but it really conflicts with a robust multilevel security system.

. Build file-browsing client/server software that enables users to browse the server file

system remotely. This is the MDX file extensions approach.