Administering and Monitoring Analysis Services - SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Cube Development - page 264

SSAS instance configuration options
All Analysis Services configuration options are available in the msmdsrv.ini file
found in the config folder under the SSAS installation directory. Instance adminis-
trators can also modify some, but not all configuration properties, using SQL Server
Management Studio ( SSMS ).
SSAS has a multitude of properties that are undocumented—this normally means that
such properties haven't undergone thorough testing, even by the software's deve-
lopers. Hence, if you don't know exactly what the configuration setting does, it's best
to leave the setting at default value. Even if you want to test various properties on a
sandbox server, make a copy of the configuration file prior to applying any changes.
How to do it...
To modify the SSAS instance settings using the configuration file, perform the follow-
ing steps:
1. Navigate to the config folder within your Analysis Services installation direct-
ory. By default, this will be C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Serv-
er\MSAS11.instance_name\OLAP\Config .
2. Open the msmdsrv.ini file using Notepad or another text editor of your
choice. The file is in the XML format, so every property is enclosed in opening
and closing tags.
3. Search for the property of interest, modify its value as desired, and save the
changes.
4. For example, in order to change the upper limit of the processing worker
threads, you would look for the <ThreadPool><Process><MaxThreads>
tag sequence and set the values as shown in the following excerpt from the
configuration file:
<Process>
<MinThreads>0</MinThreads>
<MaxThreads>250</MaxThreads>
<PriorityRatio>2</PriorityRatio>
<Concurrency>2</Concurrency>
<StackSizeKB>0</StackSizeKB>