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Welcome to my Enterprise Mashup Blog

The original purpose of this blog was to share my experiences in the use of Microsoft's XML for Analysis (XML/A) sdk. XML/A is a web service wrapper for Analysis Services 2000. Also, it is the native API for Analysis Services 2005. In most of my articles I have been and will continue to share my knowledge and solutions related to XML/A.

But I have decided on a name change - and a new manifesto.

A recent blog posting by Jon Udell introduced me to a new term which has come into the IT vernacular - "Enterprise Mashup". Coined by Phil Wainewright, it captures some of the essence of what I espouse in my work on the Microsoft platform. As such, I am going to borrow this term here and give it further meaning in the realm of the Microsoft platform - especially SQL Server. In techno-speak, an Enterprise Mashup is one that relies "on services that live on the WS-Lite end of the tolerance continuum, where recombination seems almost effortless. [2]" While Mr. Wainewright’s Enterprise Mashups are server-side affairs, my main interest is on the desktop. But I think the underlying philosophy is the same.

Anyway, here briefly is my manifesto:

Free the data. Expose your SQL and OLAP data via HTTP web services.
Empower users. Invest in well-documented examples and an "on-demand" architecture. Help them when they stumble but don’t generate their reports for them.
MS Office. Don’t fight it - embrace it.
Recruit your disciples. Develop within each department one or two "mashup marvels" who are the experts in the field in enterprise mashup. Their high productivity will speak volumes.

So moving forward, this blog will cast a wider net in terms of the problems I solve and the technologies I bring to bear.

- Chris Harrington

[2] "Enterprise mashups: a lesson from history" by Phil Wainewright
http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=88

Also see my list of Mashup Links

April 7, 2003: Introducing ThinOLAP
April 8, 2003: Technical foundations and prerequisites
April 9, 2003: Windows Scripting Host
April 10, 2003: Calling XML/A from WSH using XMLHTTP
April 11, 2003: Generating Excel Workbooks from XML/A
April 8, 2003: Generating PowerPoint Presentations from XML/A
Nov. 1, 2003: A full command-line XML/A client in WSH
Nov. 2, 2003: Generating PowerPoint from a SQL database
Nov. 3, 2004: Three-tiered PowerPoint report generator
Nov. 20, 2004: XML/A with SQL 2005 B2
Nov. 22, 2004: Batch compressing PowerPoint presentations
Nov. 25, 2004: Highly flexible PowerPoint report generator
Dec. 2, 2004: Flexible OLAP charting with XMLA and OWC
Dec. 17, 2004: XPath Patterns for XML/A and Performance Results with COM and .NET
Dec. 31, 2004: SharePoint 2.0 OLAP Web Parts
Jan. 27, 2005: Microsoft's new Business Intelligence Portal
Jan. 27, 2005: Building cubes with the SQL Server Accelerator for Business Intelligence
March 15, 2005: Moving Big Cubes
Nov. 20, 2005: Much going on
Nov. 21, 2005: Setting up SQL 2005 and XMLA
Nov. 22, 2005: Changing xamd.xsl to show KPIs
Nov. 25, 2005: The Third Dimension
March 29, 2006: Mondrian XMLA Provider
Google Analytics Mashup: Google Analytics Mashup

Feel free to contact me and let me know your results with these samples. And also feel free to suggest topics for new articles.