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sql-server-2008ssas

How to use server aliases in SSAS 2008?

I'm having trouble getting Microsoft Analysis Services 2008 to recognize a host alias that I created (even though the database engine recognizes it).

Here's the deal: we have some code that looks for an analysis services server called PRODUCTION. For testing purposes we would like to have PRODUCTION point to localhost. Under SQL Server 2000 and 2005, we accomplished that by:

  1. adding an entry on my local machine in the C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file to read: 127.0.0.1 PRODUCTION

  2. Enabling TCP/IP in the Sql Server Configuration Manager

  3. Creating an Alias for PRODUCTION in the Sql Server Configuration Manager

This works great for the database engine. I can connect the SQL Server Management Studio to the server "PRODUCTION" and it pulls up the one on my local machine. I can ping PRODUCTION and it works fine:

Pinging PRODUCTION [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

It doesnt work for Analysis Services though -- just acts as though it cant find the server. In Management Studio I can connect fine to "localhost" as the analysis services server, but when I use "PRODUCTION" as the server, I get the error below from the "Connect to Server" dialog:

"A connection cannot be made. Ensure that the server is running ... Unable to read data from the transport connection: an existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host".

This error is slightly different than the error I get if i just type a host that I know doesnt exist for the server:

"A connection cannot be made. Ensure that the server is running ... No such host is known"

This makes me think something is disabled. Or is there something else I need to enable like in steps 2 and 3 above?

Or did they change Analysis Services 2008 to not use DNS to resolve the name?

Solution

  • There bug referenced regarding this issue: Create and alias to a (named) instance of Analysis Services 2005/2008

    As darren said, you have to create a DNS Alias.