SSAS replacement · SSAS alternative
The SSAS replacement for a modern data warehouse
Your data moved to ClickHouse, Snowflake or BigQuery. Microsoft Analysis Services did not follow — and your analysts lost the Excel PivotTables they ran the business on. XLTable is an XMLA-compatible OLAP server that speaks Excel's language on top of the warehouse you have now: the same PivotTables, hierarchies and MDX, with the data staying where it lives.
Why SSAS stops working after the warehouse migration
It cannot query the new warehouse live
Analysis Services is built around SQL Server. To use ClickHouse, Snowflake or BigQuery you copy the data into the cube and reprocess it on a schedule — a second copy of the warehouse, an ETL job to babysit, and numbers that are hours old.
BI dashboards do not replace PivotTables
A dashboard answers the questions someone predicted. Analysts need to drag a new dimension onto the rows and see the number now — so they export to Excel anyway, and governance is gone.
Keeping SSAS means keeping SQL Server
SSAS ships with SQL Server: per-core licensing, a Windows-only stack and a team to run processing — all for a cube that no longer holds the source of truth.
What stays the same
- • Excel connects natively over XMLA through the standard Analysis Services dialog — no add-in, no retraining.
- • Dimensions, hierarchies, measures, calculated fields, drillthrough and MDX work as your analysts expect.
- • Row-level security and Active Directory / LDAP — one governed model for everyone.
- • Report layouts survive: keep the cube, dimension and measure names and existing PivotTables keep their shape.
What changes
- • The cube is defined in SQL and kept in Git — no Visual Studio project, no DAX.
- • No data copy and no processing: every PivotTable action becomes one SQL query in your warehouse.
- • Runs on Linux or Windows, on-premises or in your cloud, air-gapped if needed.
- • A second interface for the same cubes: AI assistants ask questions through the built-in MCP server.
SSAS vs XLTable
Condensed from the full feature comparison in the documentation.
| Feature | SSAS | XLTable |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | SQL Server first; other sources are imported into the cube | ClickHouse, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, StarRocks, Trino, Greenplum, DuckDB — queried live |
| Copy of the data | Yes — the cube stores its own copy | None — every query is pushed down to the warehouse |
| Processing / refresh jobs | Required (full or incremental) | Not needed — the numbers are as fresh as the warehouse |
| Cube definition | Visual Studio project | SQL files in Git |
| Excel PivotTables over XMLA | ✓ | ✓ |
| MDX, hierarchies, calculated fields | ✓ | ✓ |
| Row-level security, Active Directory / LDAP | ✓ | ✓ |
| Drillthrough to detail rows | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI assistants (MCP) | — | ✓ built-in MCP server |
| DAX, Power BI live connection | ✓ | — |
| Platform | Windows + SQL Server | Linux or Windows, on-premises or your cloud, air-gapped |
| Licensing | Per SQL Server core | Per user; per server for large deployments |
How a migration goes
01
Point XLTable at the warehouse
Install the service on a Linux or Windows box and add the connection — ClickHouse, Snowflake, BigQuery or any other supported engine. Most installations take under an hour.
02
Rebuild the cubes in SQL
Generate the first cube from any table in seconds, then port dimensions, measures and access rules. MDX calculated members become SQL calculated fields; the definition lives in Git.
03
Reconnect Excel
Analysts change the server address in the Analysis Services connection. With the same cube, dimension and measure names their PivotTables keep their layout.
04
Retire the processing jobs
No cube storage to refresh: the warehouse is the only copy. Shared query caching and pre-aggregation-friendly SQL keep PivotTables fast on billions of rows.
Proven in production
Retail chain Lenta runs Excel self-service for ~80 concurrent users on billions of rows in ClickHouse with XLTable — deployed in a single working day, on a perpetual license, with no extra database or BI servers.
Read the Lenta case study →Further reading
- XLTable: OLAP experience in Excel on modern data warehouses → — how XMLA and MDX map onto SQL warehouses.
- Full SSAS feature comparison in the docs →
- FAQ: macOS, large cubes, Excel versions, licensing →
Ready to plan a migration?
Start on your laptop today with the free desktop edition — the cube files move unchanged to the server when you are ready — or talk to us about a pilot in your environment.