Capturing Processing Status and Progress Messages
When you use BI Dev Studio or SS Management Studio to process an Analysis Services database or object, there's a nice dialog box that shows very robust status and progress information.
Is there any way to capture this information if you are processing something programmatically? Specifically interested in both the ability to capture and display this information to a user when processing via a custom application. Also interested in whether or not there's a way to capture this information to a log (or table) for display and analysis after the fact (or if the custom application is running in a batch mode via a schedule).
Thanks,
Dave Fackler
You can use AMO (Microsoft.AnalysisServices.dll from "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\SDK\Assemblies") to subscribe to trace events. Sample code below. The code formatting might be lost when posting, but copy paste in VS, and then "Edit -> Advanced -> Format Document" should fix it.
//=====================================================================
//
// File: Program.cs
// Summary: Sample code for using traces with AMO.
// Date: 2006-05-23
//
//
//
// Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
//
// THIS CODE AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
// ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
// THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A
// PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
//
//=====================================================================
using System;
using Microsoft.AnalysisServices;
namespace Microsoft.AnalysisServices.CodeSamples
{
/// <summary>
/// Demonstrates use of traces with AMO.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// This code requires the "Adventure Works" database to be present on the Analysis Services server
/// and also the "AdventureWorksDW" relational database on SQL Server (for processing objects to
/// generate trace events).
/// </remarks>
class AmoTrace
{
static int Main(string[] args)
{
//--
// There are 2 types of traces that AMO programmer can use:
// - the session trace: provides the events from the current session (established
// on Connect)
// - the custom traces: they allow to choose the particular event classes and
// columns to be traced. Unlike the session trace, a custom trace needs to be
// created and saved to server explicitly (as any other AMO object, like a
// Dimension or a Cube).
//
// This is the plan of the code:
// 1. we'll connect to an Analysis Services server
// 2. we'll locate the "Product" dimension from the "Adventure Works DW" database
// (we'll process it to generate trace events)
// 3. we'll use the session trace
// 4. we'll create, use and then delete a custom trace
//--
string connectionString = "Data Source=localhost";
string databaseName = "Adventure Works DW"; // use "Adventure Works DW Standard Edition" if you have the standard edition installed
try
{
//--
// STEP 1: connect to Analysis Services server.
//--
Server server = new Server();
server.Connect(connectionString);
try
{
//--
// STEP 2: locate the "Product" dimension.
//--
Database database = server.Databases.FindByName(databaseName);
if (database == null)
{
Console.Error.WriteLine("The [{0}] database is missing.", databaseName);
return 1;
}
Dimension productDimension = database.Dimensions.FindByName("Product");
if (productDimension == null)
{
Console.Error.WriteLine("The [Product] dimension is missing.");
return 1;
}
//--
// STEP 3: use the session trace.
//--
UseSessionTrace(server, productDimension);
//--
// STEP 4. create, use and then delete a custom trace.
//--
UseCustomTrace(server, productDimension);
return 0;
}
finally
{
server.Disconnect();
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.Error.WriteLine(e.ToString());
return 1;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Demonstrates the use of session trace.
/// </summary>
private static void UseSessionTrace(Server server, Dimension dimensionToProcess)
{
//--
// 1. Subscribe to the session trace events.
//--
SessionTrace sessionTrace = server.SessionTrace;
TraceEventHandler onTraceEvent = new TraceEventHandler(OnTraceEvent);
TraceStoppedEventHandler onTraceStopped = new TraceStoppedEventHandler(OnTraceStopped);
sessionTrace.OnEvent += new TraceEventHandler(OnTraceEvent);
sessionTrace.Stopped += new TraceStoppedEventHandler(OnTraceStopped);
sessionTrace.Start(); // this method is not blocking, it starts a separate thread to listen for events from server
//--
// 2. Process the dimension; this will generate events that we'll display to
// the Console.
//--
try
{
dimensionToProcess.Process(ProcessType.ProcessFull); // this method blocks; while processing, events are received
}
finally
{
//--
// 3. Un-subscribe from the trace.
//--
sessionTrace.Stop();
sessionTrace.OnEvent -= onTraceEvent;
sessionTrace.Stopped -= onTraceStopped;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Demonstrates the use of a custom trace.
/// </summary>
private static void UseCustomTrace(Server server, Dimension dimensionToProcess)
{
//--
// 1. Create and save to server a custom trace with only the
// ProgressReportBegin, ProgressReportCurrent and ProgressReportEnd events
// and the EventClass and EventSubclass columns.
//--
Trace trace = server.Traces.Add(); // a Name and ID will be generated for the new Trace
TraceEvent event1 = trace.Events.Add(TraceEventClass.ProgressReportBegin);
TraceEvent event2 = trace.Events.Add(TraceEventClass.ProgressReportCurrent);
TraceEvent event3 = trace.Events.Add(TraceEventClass.ProgressReportEnd);
event1.Columns.Add(TraceColumn.EventClass);
event1.Columns.Add(TraceColumn.EventSubclass);
event2.Columns.Add(TraceColumn.EventClass);
event2.Columns.Add(TraceColumn.EventSubclass);
event3.Columns.Add(TraceColumn.EventClass);
event3.Columns.Add(TraceColumn.EventSubclass);
// Save the newly created Trace to the server; others could use it (unlike the session
// trace which is specific to a particular session).
trace.Update();
//--
// 2. Subscribe to the newly create trace.
//--
TraceEventHandler onTraceEvent = new TraceEventHandler(OnTraceEvent);
TraceStoppedEventHandler onTraceStopped = new TraceStoppedEventHandler(OnTraceStopped);
trace.OnEvent += new TraceEventHandler(OnTraceEvent);
trace.Stopped += new TraceStoppedEventHandler(OnTraceStopped);
trace.Start(); // this method is not blocking, it starts a separate thread to listen for events from server
//--
// 3. Process the dimension; this will generate events that we'll display to
// the Console.
//--
try
{
dimensionToProcess.Process(ProcessType.ProcessFull); // this method blocks; while processing, events are received
}
finally
{
//--
// 3. Un-subscribe from the trace.
//--
trace.Stop();
trace.OnEvent -= onTraceEvent;
trace.Stopped -= onTraceStopped;
}
//--
// 4. Cleanup: delete the trace from the server. We could leave it (to be used
// in the future or by other users), but we'll delete it since it was only a
// sample.
//--
trace.Drop();
}
/// <summary>
/// Event handler for trace events, called on a separate thread by the AMO trace.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// When the Start() method is called on a Trace, AMO creates a separate thread
/// that listens for events from the server; when an event is read, this method is
/// called on that thread. There should be no heavy calculations in this method
/// because the trace thread will be blocked and events might overflow the connection's
/// buffer(s), resulting in loss of events.
/// </remarks>
private static void OnTraceEvent(object sender, TraceEventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine("Event ({0}, {1})", e.EventClass, e.EventSubclass);
}
/// <summary>
/// Event handler for trace stop events, called on a separate thread by the AMO trace when
/// a trace is stopped (by the user, by the server or by an exception).
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// There are 3 main reasons for a trace to be stopped:
/// - the user called the Stop() method
/// - the server ended the trace (because somebody deleted it meanwhile for example)
/// - an exception occured during parsing of events (because of a network disconnect for example)
/// </remarks>
private static void OnTraceStopped( ITrace sender, TraceStoppedEventArgs e )
{
Console.WriteLine("Trace Stopped: Cause = {0}, Exception = {1}", e.StopCause, e.Exception);
}
}
}
Adrian Dumitrascu.
