- Process the cube. This will:
Build - compile
- Deploy - send metadata updates to Analysis Services database
-
Process - bring over data to dimensions and fact table/measure group
If you’re the database developer, you might need to hand off the final database files to an administrator who will copy the files to the production server and process the database. But for SSAS, you need to deploy the database and then process. The Analysis Services Deployment Wizard is a good tool for the administrator to use in this, but first you need to create an asdatabase file, an XML file to contain the definitions.
1) So, how to create asdatabase file and then Copy/Paste to the production server? You can simply click theBuild button for the solution, and then it will create asdatabase file in the bin folder.
2) But what are the differences between Build and Rebuild? When you build an Analysis Services project, Business Intelligence Development Studio will build a complete set of XML files in the output folder containing all of the necessary ASSL commands needed to build all of the Analysis Services database objects in the project. If the project was previously built and incremental deployment specified (there is a option ‘Deploy Changes Only’) for the active configuration, Business Intelligence Development Studio will also build an XML file containing the ASSL commands to perform an incremental update to the deployed objects. This XML file is written to the ..obj<active configuration> folder for the project. Incremental builds can save time when deploying and processing a very large project or database. So by default, Build button will run incremental building. But for some reason, you want to run a full build to ignore the incremental deployment setting, then you can click Rebuild.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365398(SQL.90).aspx
3) What are the differences between Refresh vs. Reconnect? Generally, using refresh is enough. It will refresh the Metadata and Reports panes. But if the current connection is failed, then you have to reconnect to the server to open a new connection, right?