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Working with SSAS 2008 in an environment with mostly Mac desktops. Use DbVisualizer and Aqua Data Studio for writing relational queries, but need a native desktop app to write MDX queries and view results from OLAP sources.

VMWare / Parallels is not the approach we need, and RDP / Terminal Services is used in some situations. Web based interfaces are OK for endusers, but BI developers would prefer something more convenient.

Google searches have not returned too many useful hits.

Can anyone recommend a native / Java desktop app for browsing and querying OLAP sources?

kermatt
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  • Doesn't Excel 2011 work pretty well on the mac for this? (in lack of better tools) :) – cairnz Jan 14 '11 at 12:40
  • Have not been able to try Mac Excel yet, since MS does not offer an eval for it. I have been told that it does not support ODBC or JDBC connections, let alone XMLA. We are looking at using SSRS to publish reports via the web, and downloading them as Excel through a browser. – kermatt Jan 15 '11 at 04:08
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    Excel for Mac 2011 doesn't support OLAP or PowerPivot, or Slicers, just PivotTables (and more like Excel 2003 pivots) that can connect to ODBC via a 3rd party install – ScaleOvenStove Mar 02 '11 at 02:07

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Does your OLAP server support XMLA? If yes then have you taken a look at La_Azada or JPivot?

In my opinion (and unfortunately), MS reporting/visualizing tools for OLAP are way more convenient for end users than other open source alternatives.

Nylon Smile
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  • Yes, I have an IIS instance publishing an XMLA connector. I will give Azada a try - it is one I had not found. – kermatt Jan 15 '11 at 04:06
  • La_Azada doesn't work on Mac - needs JRE which i dont even see on the Java site for Mac for one, but even then, it is an exe - doesn't work on Mac, unless I am missing something – ScaleOvenStove Mar 02 '11 at 02:25
  • @ScaleOvenStove - You're missing something... Mac OS X includes the JVM/JRE as part of the OS installation (optionally but included by default in most versions), and updated via Software Update. Also, La_Azada has both Windows and GTK-based versions available, and both x86 and x64 builds of each. I haven't tested, but I'm guessing the GTK should work on Mac, with bitness governed by local environment... – TallTed Jul 29 '11 at 16:28