MicroStrategy OCF Connector: Install and Configure

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

The MicroStrategy OCF connector can be used to catalog objects from MicroStrategy version 2021 and later. Follow these steps to perform the required configuration on the MicroStrategy side and in Alation.

Preliminaries

Firewall Configuration

Open and whitelist the outbound ports 443 and 8080 on the MicroStrategy server for communication via the REST API.

Service Account

Create a service account with the View Grouping permission for all the projects you want to extract. See How to Create a User in MicroStrategy documentation for more information.

MicroStrategy URI

Server URI Format

Java-Based MicroStrategy Web

<http/https>://<domain name>/MicroStrategy/servlet/mstrWeb

Or

<http/https>:<hostname:portnumber>/MicroStrategy/servlet/mstrWeb

Example:

http://10.13.52.48:8080/MicroStrategy/servlet/mstrWeb

Or

https://mstr.instance.com/MicroStrategy/servlet/mstrWeb

Microsoft .NET-Based MicroStrategy Web

<http/https>://<domain name>/MicroStrategy/asp/Main.aspx

Or

<http/https>:<hostname:portnumber>/MicroStrategy/asp/Main.aspx

Example:

http://10.13.52.48:8080/MicroStrategy/asp/Main.aspx

Or

https://mstr.instance.com/MicroStrategy/asp/Main.aspx

MicroStrategy API URL Format

<http/https>://<domain name> or <hostname:portnumber>/MicroStrategyLibrary/

Example:

http://10.13.52.48:8080/MicroStrategyLibrary/

Or

https://mstr.instance.com/MicroStrategyLibrary/

Installation

STEP 1: Install the Connector

Alation On-Premise

Important

Installation of OCF connectors requires Alation Connector Manager to be installed as a prerequisite.

To install an OCF connector:

1. If this has not been done on your instance, install the Alation Connector Manager: Install Alation Connector Manager.

2. Ensure that the OCF connector Zip file is available on your local machine.

3. Install the connector on the Connectors Dashboard page using the steps in Manage Connectors.

Alation Cloud Service

Note

On Alation Cloud Service instances, Alation Connector Manager is available by default.

Depending on your network configuration, you may need to use Alation Agent to connect to databases.

Connection via Alation Agent

1. Ensure that Alation Agent is enabled on your Alation instance. If necessary, create a Support ticket with Alation for an Alation representative to enable the Alation Agent feature on your instance and to receive the Alation Agent installer.

2. Install the Alation Agent.

3. Install the OCF connector on Alation Agent.

Connection Without Agent

To install an OCF connector:

1. Ensure that the OCF connector Zip file is available on your local machine.

2. Install the connector on the Connectors Dashboard page using the steps in Manage Connectors.

STEP 2: Create and Configure a New BI Server Source

This configuration requires the role of Server Admin.

To add a new BI server source:

1. Log in to the Alation instance.

2. From the Apps menu on top right, select Sources. The Sources page will open.

3. On the upper right, click Add and in the list that opens, select BI Server. The Register a Business Intelligence Server screen will open.

4. From the Select a Business Intelligence Server type list, select the OCF connector for MicroStrategy. The connector name appears in this list only after it was installed.

   

5. Specify a Title and a Description (optional) for your Tableau OCF BI source.

   

4. Click Add. You will be navigated to your new BI Server source Settings page.

Configure MicroStrategy OCF BI Source

Perform the configuration. Save the values in each section of the settings by clicking Save.

Access

Applies from release 2023.3.5

On the Access tab, set the BI source visibility as follows:

• Public BI Server—The BI source will be visible to all users of the catalog.

• Private BI Server—The BI Source will be visible to users that have been assigned the BI Server Admin or Viewer role. It will be hidden for all other users.

You can add more BI Admins or Viewers in the BI Server Admins section if required.

For more information, see Configure Access to OCF BI Sources

General Settings

Application Settings

Parameter	Description
Enable Raw Dump or Replay	The options in this drop list can be used to dump the extracted metadata into files in order to debug extraction issues before ingesting the metadata into Alation. This feature can be used during testing in case there are issues with extraction. It breaks extraction into two steps: first, the extracted metadata is dumped into files and can be viewed; and second, it can be ingested from the files into Alation. We recommend to use this feature for debugging only. Enable Raw Metadata Dump: Select this option to save extracted metadata into a folder for debugging purposes. The dumped data will be saved in four files (attribute.dump, function.dump, schema.dump, table.dump) in folder opt/alation/site/tmp/ inside Alation shell. Enable Ingestion Replay: Select this option to ingest the metadata from the dump files into Alation. Off: Disable the Raw Metadata Dump or Replay feature. Extracted metadata will be ingested into Alation.
Disable Automatic Lineage Generation	Select the Disable Automatic Lineage Generation checkbox to skip the creation of lineage data automatically. When automatic lineage generation is disabled, during extraction Alation does not calculate lineage data for this BI source during extraction. For more information, see Automatic Lineage Generation FAQ. Note Leave the checkbox unchecked for BI lineage to be automatically generated after extraction.
Disable Permission Enforcement	Select this checkbox to disregard user permissions on MicroStrategy server and to not perform permission enforcement. This setting does not disable permission extraction by the connector. This checkbox is selected by default, and Alation will not mirror MicroStrategy permissions. Note Metadata extraction time will increase if you enable permission enforcement.
Disable Certification	Not applicable.
Server URI	Enter the server URI to access the MicroStrategy objects from the catalog page.

Connector Settings

Parameter	Description
Server Connection
MicroStrategy API URL	Enter the MicroStrategy API URL to access the MicroStrategy instance.
Username	Specify the username of the MicroStrategy service account for standard authentication.
Password	Specify the password of the MicroStrategy service account for standard authentication.
Disable Server Certification	Connection over SSL is disabled by default. Clear this checkbox to configure an SSL connection. Leave it selected to connect without SSL.
Server SSL Certificate	If connecting over SSL, upload the SSL certificate for MicroStrategy. This field is applicable only if the Disable Server Certification checkbox is unchecked.

Additional Settings

Parameter	Description
Enable preview extraction Extraction	Select this checkbox to extract previews. By default, this checkbox is clear, and Alation will not extract previews.
Preview image quality in DPI (Dots Per Inch)	Provide the DPI scale for preview images. The default value is 96.
Request timeout in seconds	Provide the download timeout in seconds for MicroStrategy REST calls. The default value is 300.
Disable Permission Extraction	Select this checkbox to disregard user permissions in MicroStrategy and not perform permission extraction. This checkbox is clear by default, and Alation will extract MicroStrategy permissions.
I-Server	Specify the intelligent server name of MicroStrategy. The name provided in this field forms a redirect URL to the MicroStrategy UI from Alation. This field is available from MicroStrategy OCF connector version 1.0.2.

Logging Configuration

Select the logging level for the connector logs and save the values by clicking Save in this section. The available log levels are based on the Log4j framework.

Parameter	Description
Log level	Select the log level to generate logs. The available options are INFO, DEBUG, WARN, TRACE, ERROR, FATAL, ALL. Default log selection is INFO.

Test Connection

After specifying the connector settings, under Test Connection, click Test to validate network connectivity.

Extraction

To configure extraction:

1. Under Extraction Settings, enable Selective Extraction, if required. Selective extraction settings are used to apply a filter to include or exclude a list of projects. If selective extraction is not selected then full extraction will be performed.

2. Click Get List of Projects to first fetch the list of projects from MicroStrategy.

3. The status of the Get Projects action is logged in the Job History table at the bottom of the Settings page.

4. Once the folder synchronization is successful, a drop-down list of projects will become enabled. Select one or more projects to apply the filter.

5. Check if you are using the desired filter option. Available filter options are described below:

   Filter Option	Description
   Extract all Folders except	Extract metadata from all Folders except from the workspaces selected.
   Extract only these Folders	Extract metadata only from the selected Folders.

6. Click Run Extraction Now to extract metadata. The status of the extraction action is also logged in the Job History table at the bottom of the page.

7. If you wish to automatically update the metadata in the catalog, under Automated and Manual Extraction, turn on Enable Automated Extraction and select the day and time when metadata must be extracted. The metadata extraction will be automatically scheduled to run at the selected day and time.

   

Limitations

• The MicroStrategy OCF connector is compatible with MicroStrategy version 2021 and later and utilizes the corresponding MicroStrategy REST APIs. There are currently certain limitations regarding the data accessible through these REST APIs. The limitations include the absence of support for prompted dossiers & reports, report previews, derived expression fields, and prompted fields for dossiers, documents, and reports. As a result, the associated metadata for these elements cannot be extracted by the connector. Partial information as available via the REST API’s are cataloged for prompted dossiers and reports.

• In extracting the prompted reports, answering the prompts is not supported. So, the extracted reports can have missing field information.

• MicroStrategy OCF connector supports only standard authentication (username and password).

• Table lineage and column level lineage are not supported since the data source host and port number are not available.

• Connections metadata cannot be extracted due to limitations of the current REST API.

• Connector links for cubes will redirect to the parent folder where the cube is present vs the actual cube page.

• Permission enforcement on MicroStrategy is not supported for custom permissions (users and groups). Permission mirroring will work only with non-custom permissions.In the below table:

  • Visible in MicroStrategy Web UI means that users will be able to view and modify an object based on their permissions.

  • Visible in Alation UI” means that Alation users will be able to see the object.

  • Not visible means that an objects cannot be viewed by users.

  Permissions	MicroStrategy Web UI	Alation UI
  Deny All	Not visible	Not visible
  View	Visible	Visible
  Modify	Visible	Visible
  Full Control	Visible	Visible
  Custom (Browse Allow)	Visible	Visible
  Custom (Browse Deny)	Not visible	Not visible
  Is user or group is not assigned any permissions	Not visible	Not visible

• The type and values for fields are not cataloged due to the MicroStrategy API limitation.

Table Level Lineage

MicroStrategy Table Level Lineage (TLL) support is available from MicroStrategy OCF Connector version 1.1.0 and Alation version 2023.3.5.

TLL will be generated for a report or a dashboard based on the type of cube used by the report.

Scope

Cube Datasource Types	In-Memory Cubes	Live Cubes
DSN-less (Published)	Yes (Gets connection info and SQL query)	No
DSN-less (Unpublished)	Yes (Only SQL query is supported. TLL is generated via API for Cross-System Lineage)	No
DSN (Published)	Yes (Only SQL query is supported. TLL is generated via API for Cross-System Lineage)	No
DSN (Unpublished)	Yes (Only SQL query is supported. TLL is generated via API for Cross-System Lineage)	No

Supported Database Types:

Note

Provided SQL query returned by the MicroStrategy API for the cube, should be in a valid format

amazon_redshift, cassandra, databricks, db2, google_big_query, hive, hive_thrift, impala, mem_sql, my_sql, oracle, postgre_sql, sap, sap_hana, snow_flake, sql_server, teradata, and vertica.

Prerequisites

DSN-Less (Published) In-Memory cubes

Cube with single datasource

In these cubes, we can extract the hostname, port number, and SQL query, giving all the required information to form a cross-system lineage between a BI source and an RDBMS source.

Specify the hostname and the port number of this BI source on the RDBMS connector’s General Settings > Application Settings > Additional Datasource connections field in the format mentioned below:

Host_Name:Port_Number

Example: adb-8443049157651279.19.azuredatabricks.net:4431

Other Types of Cubes

• Cube with multiple datasources

• DSN-Less (Unpublished)

• DSN-based cubes

In these cubes, only SQL statements are extracted. Hostname, port, and dbtype will not be extracted.

To establish cross-system lineage on these cubes where only SQL statements are extracted, invoke API for Cross-System Lineage, which will link the BI source and the RDBMS source in Alation.

API for Cross-System Lineage

Cross-System Lineage API will enable the alation user to create a mapping between the BI Source and the RDBMS Source. The lineage framework will use this mapping to generate lineage between these sources.

Prerequisite

To use the Cross-Lineage API, you must enable the following flag in alation_conf:

1. Use SSH to connect to the Alation server.

2. Enter the Alation shell using the following command:

   sudo /etc/init.d/alation shell
   

3. Set the following flag to True:

   alation.resolution.DEV_no_hostport_lineage_resolution -s True
   

   Note

   No restart is required.

4. Exit the Alation shell by using the exit command.

API Information

API HTTP Method: POST

URL Format: https://{Alation URL}/api/v1/bulk_metadata/cross_system_lineage/create/

Authorization: Bearer token

Body (sample content): {"source_otype": "data", "source_oid": 1, "target_otype": "bi_server", "target_oid": 1}

source_oid: RDBMS Server ID

target_oid: BI Server ID

Sample Payloads:

{
      "source_otype": "data",
      "source_oid": 43,
      "target_otype": "bi_server",
      "target_oid": 13
}

or

{
     "source_otype": "data",
     "source_connection_info": {
         "host": "snowflake-cloud.grx-tracker.com"
     },
     "target_otype": "bi_server",
     "target_connection_info": {
         "host": "11.13.47.40"
     }
}

or

{
     "source_otype": "data",
     "source_connection_info": {
         "host": "snowflake-cloud.grx-tracker.com"
     },
     "target_otype": "bi_server",
     "target_oid": 13
}

or

{
     "source_otype": "data",
     "source_oid": 43,
     "target_otype": "bi_server",
     "target_connection_info": {
         "host": "11.13.47.40"
     }
}

You can create mappings for the same target_oid (BI Server ID) with a different source_oid (RDBMS Server ID).

Lineage links pushed through API for Cross-System Lineage API would add and not affect the lineage links established through the existing automatic lineage generation.

For more information on Cross-System Lineage APIs please refer to Alation’s official Developer Portal.

Configure Table Level Lineage

Perform the following steps to generate the Table Level Lineage:

1. Configure the MicroStrategy OCF BI Source.

2. Perform Metadata Extraction.

3. Use the Lineage API; see API for Cross-System Lineage for more information.

4. Perform Metadata Extraction again on the BI source in Alation to generate the Table Level Lineage.

Limitations

• In DSN-Less (published) in-memory cubes with multiple database instances, we will not be able to view host, port & dbtype information on the connections tab of a cube in Alation.

• Table level lineage for Live cubes is not supported due to limitations in MicroStrategy API to return required metadata.

Troubleshooting

Refer to Troubleshooting.

Type of Error	Cause	Solution
Test connection failure or timeout	Configuration issues or connectivity issues	Verify the MicroStrategy username, password, version (must be 2021 and later), and the MicroStrategy API URL provided correctly on the Settings page. Make sure that the MicroStrategy URL is reachable. Make sure that a valid SSL certificate is uploaded if the Disable Server Certification checkbox is cleared.
MicroStrategy objects not shown in the catalog after a successful extraction	MicroStrategy user permissions issue	Objects will not be visible when a MicroStrategy user is not provided with the appropriate access. Permissions will not be applied when permissions mirroring is disabled.
MicroStrategy REST API 500 internal server or authentication exceptions	MicroStrategy REST API issues (authentication or outage)	Verify REST API of MicroStrategy user auth & get call to make sure that the API response is received with the service account credentials. See MicroStrategy REST for more details.