Installing the Accelerator as a Windows Service

This guide describes how to install Flexmonster Accelerator as a Windows Service.

The main benefits of running the Accelerator as a Windows service are:

• Runs in the background.
• Starts automatically with Windows.
• Hard to close unintentionally.

If you need more control and flexibility over processing and loading data, consider using the Accelerator as a DLL.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Analysis Services installed and configured
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 or later
• Flexmonster CLI
  Install it with the following command:

  npm install -g flexmonster-cli

Step 1. Install Flexmonster Accelerator

Flexmonster Accelerator can be installed on your SSAS server or on a different machine. To achieve the best performance, we recommend installing the Accelerator on the SSAS server.

To start the installation, run the add CLI command:

flexmonster add accelerator -i

This command does the following:

• Downloads Flexmonster Accelerator to the flexmonster-accelerator/ folder in your current directory.
• Starts the installation process using the flexmonster-accelerator/Flexmonster Accelerator.msi setup file.

When the installation begins, just follow the wizard. By default, the Accelerator will be installed to the C:/Program Files (x86)/Flexmonster/Flexmonster Accelerator/ folder.

You can check whether the Accelerator is up and running by navigating to its URL in the browser (http://localhost:50005 by default).

Step 2. Configure Flexmonster Accelerator on the server

After a successful installation, run Flexmonster Accelerator Manager:

Click the Config button to open the flexmonster.config file, which contains configurations for the Accelerator. To learn more about them, see the configurations reference.

When the configuration is finished, restart Flexmonster Accelerator using the Accelerator Manager: click the Stop button and then click Start. Then you can close Flexmonster Accelerator Manager — the service will continue working in the background.

Step 3. Open a port for the Accelerator in the firewall

If you plan to allow connections to the Accelerator from outside the server, open the appropriate port in the firewall. The default port number is 50005, but it can be changed using the PORT parameter in the flexmonster.config file.

Step 4. Embed the component into your webpage

If Flexmonster is not yet embedded, set up an empty component in your webpage:

const pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer",
  toolbar: true
});

<FlexmonsterReact.Pivot
 toolbar={true}
/>

<fm-pivot
 [toolbar]="true">
</fm-pivot>

<Pivot
 toolbar
/>

Step 5. Configure the component

Create a report where the proxyUrl, catalog, and cube parameters are set to your specific values:

const pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer",
  toolbar: true,  
  report: { 
    dataSource: { 
      type: "microsoft analysis services", 

      /* URL to Flexmonster Accelerator */ 
      proxyUrl: "http://localhost:50005", 

      /* Catalog name */ 
      catalog: "Adventure Works DW Standard Edition", 
            
      /* Cube name */ 
      cube: "Adventure Works", 
                
      // Flag to use the Accelerator instead of XMLA protocol binary 
      binary: true 
    } 
  } 
}); 

const pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer",
  toolbar: true,  
  report: { 
    dataSource: { 
      type: "microsoft analysis services", 

      /* URL to Flexmonster Accelerator */ 
      proxyUrl: "http://localhost:50005", 

      /* Database name */ 
      catalog: "Adventure Works DW Standard Edition", 
            
      /* Model name */ 
      cube: "Adventure Works", 
                
      // Flag to use the Accelerator instead of XMLA protocol binary 
      binary: true  
    } 
  }
});  

Live example

See the full list of Flexmonster properties used to configure the dataSource object.

Now open the webpage in the browser to see the pivot table with your SSAS data.

List of supported configuration parameters

When connecting to data from Microsoft Analysis Services, you can use the following properties of the DataSourceObject:

About response caching

Caching responses can greatly improve performance. By default, caching is enabled and controlled by the Accelerator.

However, if the underlying database ever changes, the cache goes out of date. It is possible to disable the cache with the CACHE_ENABLED parameter in the flexmonster.config file:

CACHE_ENABLED = false

Access flexmonster.config through the Flexmonster Accelerator Manager.

Uninstalling the Accelerator

To completely uninstall the Accelerator as a Windows service, you need to delete the Accelerator executable and the Accelerator folders.

Learn how to uninstall the Accelerator:

Step 1. Navigate to the folder where the FlexmonsterAccelerator.msi file is located (e.g., flexmonster-accelerator/).

Step 2. Run the the FlexmonsterAccelerator.msi file.

Step 3. In the wizard window, select the Remove Flexmonster Accelerator option and click Finish.

Step 4. optional Back up the flexmonster-config.json file if you need it for future use. By default, it is located in the C:/Program Files (x86)/Flexmonster/Flexmonster Accelerator/ folder.

Step 5. Delete the Accelerator folders:

• Folder where the FlexmonsterAccelerator.msi file is located (e.g., flexmonster-accelerator/).
• Folder where the service is installed (by default, C:/Program Files (x86)/Flexmonster/Flexmonster Accelerator/).

See also

• Referencing the Accelerator as a DLL
• Managing authentication and data access
• Configuring a secure HTTPS connection
• Configuring the slice