XMLA
XML for Analysis
Judgement: Caution
Legacy SOAP-based BI protocol; survives only inside MS Analysis Services.
SOAP-based protocol for querying multidimensional data sources — cubes, semantic layers, and tabular models. The transport that carries MDX (and DAX) queries between BI clients and analytical engines.
Implemented by Microsoft Analysis Services, Mondrian, SAP BW, AtScale, and consumed by Excel, Power BI, Tableau, and most enterprise BI tools. Greenfield analytics has moved on, but XMLA remains how a vast amount of cube-based reporting actually talks to its backend.
At a glance
- Category
- Database Connectivity
- Governance
- XMLA Council (Microsoft, Hyperion, SAS); de-facto industry spec
- Status
- Legacy; still the standard wire protocol for OLAP/semantic-layer access
- First released
- 2001
Links
Related standards
Other standards in Database Connectivity.
- ADBC — Arrow Database Connectivity
- JDBC — Java Database Connectivity
- ODBC — Open Database Connectivity
- Quack
See XMLA in context
Open the interactive Data Landscape to compare XMLA against every other open standard, or grab the raw JSON. Spotted something wrong? Open an issue.