423
SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide
Support for Relation type columns as "hierarchy parents."
All model variables can have a missing state described, even those with a
continuous domain.
For a complete specification of SQL Server 2000 Data Mining functionality and
extensions, see
OLE DB for Data Mining Specification 1.0
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&FamilyID=010
05f92-dba1-4fa4-8ba0-af6a19d30217). For a complete list of deprecated features in
SSAS 2012, see
Deprecated Analysis Services Functionality in SQL Server 2012
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143346(SQL.110).aspx) in SQL Server 2012
Books Online.
Discontinued Functionality
There’s only a short list of discontinued data mining functionality from SSAS 2005 to
SSAS 2008, SSAS 2008 R2, and SSAS 2012:
Mining Execution Location connection string property
Mining Location connection string property
In SSAS 2012, the OLE DB provider does not support the Mining Execution Location
and Mining Location properties. Although you can specify the Mining Execution
Location property in a connection string, SSAS 2012 ignores the setting. If you need to
upgrade your mining models from SQL Server 2000, please note that a direct upgrade
path to 2012 is not supported anymore. You should upgrade to SQL Server 2005, 2008,
or 2008 R2 first. Because a direct upgrade path is not supported, note that the
following is discontinued as well:
Migration Wizard, which is used to migrate SSAS 2000 databases to newer
versions
Decision Support Objects (DSO) library, which provides compatibility with SSAS
databases
You can find the complete list of SSAS 2012 discontinued functionality in
Discontinued
Analysis Services Functionality in SQL Server 2012
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms143229(SQL.110).aspx) in SQL Server 2012 Books Online.
424
SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide
Breaking Changes
If you upgrade your data mining modes from SSAS 2005 to SSAS 2012, the following
issues could prevent a successful upgrade, force you to update your SSAS databases
after the upgrade, or change the results of your mining models:
ODBC data sources are not supported in SSAS 2012. If you are using ODBC data
sources, you need to change them to OLE DB providers.
DSOs are not installed by default when you install SQL Server 2012.
You can use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) functions in
your Data Mining
Extensions (DMX) statements. However, VBA functions handle NULL values
differently in SSAS 2012. In SSAS 2005, VBA functions return 0 or an empty
string when NULL or empty values are used as arguments. In SQL Server 2012,
VBA functions return NULL.
For information about some of these breaking changes, see
Breaking Changes to
Analysis Services Features in SQL Server 2012
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms143742(SQL.110).aspx) in SQL Server 2012 Books Online.
Behavior Changes
There are no specific behavior changes in the mining models when you upgrade them
from SSAS 2005, 2008, or 2008 R2 to SSAS 2012. To confirm this information, see
Behavior Changes to Analysis Services Features in SQL Server 2012
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143682(SQL.110).aspx) in SQL Server 2012
Books Online.
Running Upgrade Advisor
Fortunately, you do not have to check all the potential upgrade issues manually. The
SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Advisor can help you detect potential issues. However, be
aware that Upgrade Advisor does not report all possible issues; it reports blocking
issues only.
Chapter 1, “Upgrade Planning and Deployment,” in this guide covers how to install and
use Upgrade Advisor, so we won’t repeat that information here. But to illustrate how to
use Upgrade Advisor related to data mining models, we created a simple SSAS
database on both SSAS 2005 and SSAS 2008 R2 that contain a couple of mining
models and other necessary objects, without OLAP dimensions and cubes. For our
examples, we used the SSAS 2005 AdventureWorksDW sample database.
425
SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide
After
we installed Upgrade Advisor, we started it. From the initial page, we selected the
Launch Upgrade Advisor Analysis Wizard link. After clicking Next in the Welcome page,
we selected Analysis Services from the SQL Server components window, as shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Selecting the Analysis Services component in the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor
Analysis Wizard
Then we selected the 2005 instance and ran the analysis. After the analysis was finished,
we launched the Upgrade Advisor Report Viewer. As the results in Figure 2 shows, there
were no unresolved issues. This is what we expected because the differences between
the data mining models in SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2012 are
minor.