Connecting to Analysis Services with the Port Number

First of all, let me tell you that why I need to connect to Analysis Services with the Port number; because the Analysis Services 2008 is running as a named instance and SQL Server Brower needs to be disabled as a security measure. Why do we need SQL Server Browser Services? By default, Analysis Services uses the port 2383. When you connect to the default instance (in my case, it is 2005), it connects to the SSAS without any problems, even though you have not specified the port with the connection string. If you try to connect to a named instance of Analysis Services (again, in my case, it is 2008), without specifying the port, you will still be able to connect, as long as the SQL Server Browser is running. Named instances of the SSAS use port numbers that are dynamically assigned, therefore they are varies. When you restart the service, it assigns a new one. Assigned port number can be seen with msmdredir.ini file in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\ASConfig folder. Though we do not specify the port in the connection string (even with SSMS), SQL Server Browser handles the request and directs us to the correct instance, because it knows the port numbers assigned. Now my issue was, unavailability of SQL Server Browser hence cannot connect to the named instance. When we try to connect to the named instance with SSMS or BIDS, it says that Browser is not running. Since the Browser cannot be enabled (as a security measure), all we have to do is, find the port number (from the ini file specified above) and specify with the connection string. One thing you have to remember is, when specifying, it should be {MachineName}:{PortNumber}, NOT like {InstanceName}:{PortNumber}. If my machine name is DINESH-PC and named instance is SQL2008; When connecting to the default instance: DINESH-PC:2383 When connecting to the named instance: DINESH-PC:50019, NOT DINESH-PC\SQL2008:50019 If need to fix a port number, use the ini file or Port property in Analysis Services, for changing.