You can use PivotTable Service® with your custom applications, or with applications provided by Microsoft or other vendors, to connect to an OLAP server running Microsoft® SQL Server™ OLAP Services. Within a session, clients can retrieve and manipulate cube data.
PivotTable Service can be used with applications to create local cube files, populate them with data from OLE DB providers, including an OLAP server or a relational database, and browse and analyze the local cube data even when disconnected from the server.
You can use PivotTable Service to retrieve multidimensional data from an OLAP server or local cube file for presentation with Web-based applications. For more information, see Sample Web Programs.
It is planned that Microsoft Office 2000 will provide features that use PivotTable Service to connect to an OLAP server to retrieve and analyze data, and to create and use local cube files.
A client application connects to PivotTable Service through the OLE DB or Microsoft ActiveX® Data Objects (Multidimensional) (ADO MD) interfaces. The OLE DB DataSource object is the means by which the connection is made and a new session is established. Additional special properties for the DataSource object are used to declare connection criteria specific to PivotTable Service. For example, you must specify at the time of initialization whether you want to connect to OLAP Services as a provider, create a new local cube, or connect to an existing local cube. For more information, see Special OLE DB DataSource Properties.
Programmer’s Guide - PivotTable Service