How to deploy an Analysis Services database using a script

Deploying an OLAP application using deployment scripts is a common scenario in larger development environments. Of course we can use XMLA scripts to do the deployment but running the script from SQL Server Management Studio might not be an option in a fully automated installation script. Fortunately enough Microsoft provides the command line utility ascmd.exe which is much like sqlcmd.exe for the relational SQL Server. Ascmd.exe gives a simple method to execute XMLA scripts against a SQL Server Analysis Services server (SSAS).

If you don't have the ascmd.exe as a precompiled version yet you can easily build it from the source code provided in the server samples for the Analysis Services which can be downloaded from the SQL Server Samples page at Codeplex.com.

After installing the samples you should find the source code for ascmd.exe in the folder: