Analysis Services .abf file database restore

Question

I am really really new to SQL Server, I know how to do a query and other simple stuff and recently my company was bought by another one, we had a Cube Server which was accessed by a excel file via olap using the analysis services from sql server 2008 it was updated by an .abf file, first day after the sale the former server was retired, and everything I have access to is this .abf file used to update the cube, I installed sql server 2008 enterprise edition and I'm trying to restore the file to a new database via the analysis services since the only instructions I received from the old IT department is that is needed to be restored via analysis services. I searched online for some solutions and came across several articles and none of the steps worked for me because they required a already configured database and they were only restoring a backup. I'm thinking I need the .mdf file first so I can recreate the database as is and then I can update it via the .abf file, can someone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

Since you have the .ABF file, there are a couple options to restore this as a new database. You can either create a new database with the same name, then restore this database from the .ABF file with the AllowOverwrite option set to true. You can also restore directly to a new database by right-clicking the SSAS instance and selecting Restore... From here, specify the backup file name and just enter the name of the database and this will be created as a new cube. This name must be a new database name, as if an existing cube is specified it will be overwritten. Either approach can be done through an XMLA command in SSMS and an example of this is below.

<Restore xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine">
  <File>C:\YourFilePath\YourCubeBackupFile.abf</File>
  <DatabaseName>TargetOrNewDatabaseName</DatabaseName>
  <AllowOverwrite>true</AllowOverwrite>
</Restore>