May 18, 2010 in Blog by Amer

An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the analysis server.

One of the few issues in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 that I always blaming Microsoft for not giving it in a proper way is: installing, configuring and administrating the EP (with all its related components line the SSRS, SSAS, IIS and WSS/MOSS). A great feature like this shouldn’t be left away like this Steve :)… we are dying, customers are blaiming, and partners are loosing money!

I had one issue in the last few days when I “re-installed” the EP, SSRS and SSAS then my client played with the environment and destroyed the installation. The environment was like the following:

• SQL Server Reporting Services database is installed on another machine (Database server) than the windows service of SSRS (web server).
• I had to use the Kerberos authentication to manage this distributed scenario

After completing the installtion of EP, SSRS and SSAS, configuring them and processing the cubes I had this error: “An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the analysis server.”

After invistigations, I discovered that the ODC file is not deployed to the EP. (ODC file is a file used to set the connnection string between the EP WSS and the Analysis Services.) You could check the ODC files by going to: Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal –> Site settings –> Site Administration –> Site Libraries and Lists –> Customize “Data connections” and then in the header area click Data Connections in the path: EP Site –> Data Connections –> Settings.

You could deploy the ODC file from within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 desktop client by clicking the Delpoye ODC Files button in the OLAP Administration form (Administration –> Setup –> Business analysis –> OLAP –> OLAP Administration).

But sometimes you will not be able to upload this file, and you will get an error when trying to connect to SQL and you have to check the Windows Event Log to follow that error up.

If so, then you have to maually create/upload the ODC file(s). A great post was written regarding the same issue on how you upload those ODC files specifically for Dynamics AX 2009 cubes. How to manually deploy ODC Files to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Enterprise Portal.

In this post shortly the writer gives those ODC files so you could:

1. download them,
2. change the connection string to match yours and then
3. deploy them to your environment

Have fun :).