Improve Cube Performance Problems

Performance problems (slow cube processing or slow cube browsing) are critical problems that Analysis Services Consultants and Business Executives encounter. Cubes are computationally intensive. Period. Data Cubes are big and complex beasts that require the right hardware resources under all conditions. It really does not matter how informative or "cool" a data cube is if it takes to long to process the cube, or is impractically slow to browse the cube or move dimensions around the cube.

Improve Cube Processing Performance

Cube Processing are the actions required to transform, load and aggregate data into a cube form in SQL Analysis Services. Usually, Cube Processing is done as a batch process, at the server level. In all cases, optimizing cube processing speed is going to be a benefit overall. PCA’s experience can help you find dimension, measure and aggregation configuration issues and help you tune your cube and/or tune your relational database design to improve cube processing time. PCA engineering consultants have many techniques for optimizing dimensions and measures in cubes that can be employed to improve cube performance. A Cube must be processed before it can be Browsed.

Improve Cube Browsing Performance

When an end user view and manipulates, pivots, and moves data around a user interface that looks at Cube Data, these actions are referred to as Cube Browsing. If a cube contains a significant amount of distinct data along any of its axis, or if the cube has not been properly designed or tuned, then users can be frustrated by the time required to manipulate the cube data.  PCA engineering consultants have experience in designing cubes that will slice and dice quickly and efficiently.

Cube Slicing & Dicing

Cube Slicing is an effective technique that can provide improvements in cube speed. Normally, a cube user does not need to see the entire cube at once. Users may only need to see a time slice (say last month’s data), or a geographic slice (my sales region for example) or similar. Effectively slicing cubes in such a way that the user only sees the portion of the cube they need has the effect of increasing speed dramatically!