How to talk to MS Analysis Services from Flash to reach OLAP Cube? It was the first question.

Firstly, you need to know that Microsoft Analysis Services uses SOAP-based XML for Analysis protocol to exchange of data between clients and server. (You may also read more about XMLA on Wikipedia)

So in Flash application

1. generate XMLA request,
2. forward it to SOAP wrapper and
3. send SOAP request to the HTTP pump (http://your_host_name/msmdpump.dll),
4. HTTP pump forwards the request to the server.

Microsoft Analysis Services

1. sends the SOAP response back to the HTTP pump,
2. SOAP parser retrieve data from HTTP pump and
3. prepare data for our application.

There two types of XMLA request. The Discover method retrieve information about data structure on a server and the Execute method sends requests for retrieving or updating data. We discover data structure and choose desired dimensions for view, retrieve data from server and show in grid.

You can try demo in action - it is connected to the sample OLAP cube in MS Analysis Services. You can configure the dimensions structure and visualize the result.