Is it secure to deploy an SSAS Tabular Model package impersonating a specific user?

Question

I created an Analysis Services Tabular Project in Visual Studio.

I tried to set the Impersonation Information to "Current User":

Unfortunately, I get the following error:

Failed to save modifications to the server. Error returned: 'The datasource, '[Datasource Name]', contains an ImpersonationMode that is not supported for processing operations.

If I instead set "Impersonation Information" to "Specific Windows user name and password" and use my personal account, it works just fine.

I got error messages for all other options (other than impersonating a specific account). For example, the "Unattended Account" option gave me the following error:

Failed to save modifications to the server. Error returned: 'An unexpected error occurred (file 'pcsspi.cpp', line 926, function 'GetImpersonationIdentity').

A connection could not be made to the data source with the Name of '[Data Source Name]'.

I do not handle the deployment myself - I move the entire solution to a shared folder and the tech lead for that particular project deploys it.

That being said, are there any security implications for impersonating my account? Any chance I could compromise my credentials?

Answer 1

Its totally fine to impersonate a specific Windows username and password however using your personal account is not correct. Set up a service account that has limited access to just the resources the Tabular model needs for refreshing. (Whatever data sources it uses and nothing else)