Getting started with Flexmonster Accelerator

Flexmonster Accelerator for Microsoft Analysis Services cubes is a special server-side proxy that increases data loading speeds from the server to the user’s browser. Flexmonster Accelerator works with:

• Microsoft Analysis Services multidimensional cubes.
• Microsoft Analysis Services tabular models.
• Azure Analysis Services tabular models.

When working with OLAP cubes, a browser component communicates with the server via the XMLA protocol. The XMLA protocol is heavy and exchanges a lot of excessive information – it takes too much time and memory to load and process the data.

We replaced the XMLA protocol and use direct requests from the component to the server.

This is our solution to two major problems that many of those who work with big data face:

• We made big data transfer from the server to the browser incredibly fast. Our tool allows you to transfer large multidimensional data super easily and quickly. Reporting becomes more enjoyable and prompt for your end users.
• We greatly reduced the load on the browser memory.

The diagram below shows how Flexmonster Accelerator transfers your data to Flexmonster Pivot:

There are two ways to use Flexmonster Accelerator:

• Install the Accelerator as a Windows Service
• Reference the Accelerator as a DLL

Install Flexmonster Accelerator as a Windows Service

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

• It runs in the background and out of sight.
• It starts automatically on Windows startup.
• It’s hard for a user to inadvertently quit the application.

This guide contains the following sections:

• Prerequisites
• Step 1. Embed the component into your webpage
• Step 2. Install Flexmonster Accelerator
• Step 3. Configure Flexmonster Accelerator on the server
• Step 4. Open a port for the Accelerator in the firewall
• Step 5. Configure the component
• Cache control

Prerequisites

• Flexmonster Pivot version 2.2 or higher
• Microsoft Analysis Services installed and configured
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 or higher
• Flexmonster CLI
  Install it with the following command:

  npm install -g flexmonster-cli

Step 1. Embed the component into your webpage

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

let pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer",
  componentFolder: "node_modules/flexmonster/",
  toolbar: true
});

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

<FlexmonsterReact.Pivot
 toolbar={true}
/>

<Pivot
 ref="pivot"
 toolbar>
</Pivot>

Step 2. Install Flexmonster Accelerator

Start the installation process with the following CLI command:

flexmonster add accelerator -i

The flexmonster add accelerator command does the following:

• Downloads the .zip archive with Flexmonster Accelerator.
• Automatically unpacks the files in the current folder — as a result, the flexmonster-accelerator/ folder will appear in your current directory.

The -i option, which stands for --install, automatically starts the installation using the Flexmonster Accelerator.msi setup file. When the installation begins, just follow the wizard.

The flexmonster-accelerator/ folder has the following structure:

• Flexmonster Accelerator.msi – a server-side utility that handles the connection between Microsoft Analysis Services and Flexmonster Pivot.
• flexmonster.config – a file that contains configuration parameters for the utility (connection string, port, etc.).

Step 3. Configure Flexmonster Accelerator on the server

After a successful installation, run Flexmonster Accelerator Manager:

Click the Config button to open the flexmonster.config configuration file. It contains the following parameters:

Note: to connect to Azure Analysis Services with Flexmonster Accelerator, specify the following parameters in flexmonster.config:

To apply new configs, restart the Accelerator using Flexmonster Accelerator Manager: click the Stop button and then click Start.

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

When the configuration is finished, you can close Flexmonster Accelerator Manager - the service will continue working in the background.

Step 4. 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 5. Configure the component

Now it’s time to configure the client – Flexmonster Pivot Table and Charts. Let’s create a minimal configuration using the JavaScript API (replace proxyUrl, catalog and cube parameters with your specific values):

var pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer", 
  componentFolder: "node_modules/flexmonster/",
  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 
    } 
  } 
}); 

var pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer", 
  componentFolder: "node_modules/flexmonster/",
  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  
    } 
  }
});  

See the full code on JSFiddle.

Now launch the webpage from a browser — there you go! A pivot table is embedded in your project.

Cache control

Usually, a cache can improve performance greatly. However, if the underlying database ever changes, the cache goes out of date. By default, caching is enabled and controlled by the Accelerator.

It is also possible to disable the cache with the CACHE_ENABLED parameter in the flexmonster.config file:

CACHE_ENABLED = false

What’s next?

You may be interested in the following articles:

• Configuring the authentication process
• Configuring a secure HTTPS connection