Does anyone know if BI 4.x supports SQL Server 2012 DAX?

[Former Member]

Does anyone know if BI 4.x supports SQL Server 2012 DAX language yet?  DAX was introduced as a new language to go against the "in-memory" portion of SQL Server. The MDX was the old language which is still supported but I'm unsure if DAX is still supported or not. Thanks in advance!

[Henry_Banks · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You need to check the supportability pages at www.service.sap.com/PAM  for your particular version.

go the Semantic Layers page, open the Excel,  check either the Relational or OLAP tabs - check for vendor Microsoft etc.

presumably, if this is some kind of proprietary MS-standard for advanced calculation functions (either for processing at  cube level or in excel pivots)   then a 3rd party application (such as BI4.x in this case)  would not concern itself with calling "DAX",  but  would carry on using the normal OLAP (OLE DB) drivers.

Therefore I would have thought that the transition between MDX and DAX processing engines would be handled internally by the MS application, and would be discreet to other vendors.  Unless they released a new set of middleware/drivers for applications that consume its data?

Regards,

H

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Henry,

In MS SQL Server the MDX and DAX are two totally different languages that are processed by two different "engines/SDK's". The MDX is specific to the "Analysis Services" stack and the "DAX" is specific to the "xVelocity" stack.  Those two stacks are not interchangeable, meaning I cannot use DAX against analysis services cubes or use MDX to query the xVelocity engine to check out the in-memory capabilities.  It's an internal battle that Microsoft has to figure out how to solve...

From what I'm reading, MS SQL 2012 SP1 and forward supports XMLA connectivity against xVelocity so theoretically it could work now from BOBJ 4.1 since that's how BOBJ 4.1 connects to the SSAS Cubes...

Thanks for your help, I'll have to update my findings.