Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
When you actually get to tuning your system always keep in mind that what you
read here, learn from others, or even glean from Oracle system documentation, is
in most cases to be taken as guidelines for your own individual situation.
The actual actions you'll be performing, when you are tuning your database, are
items like adjusting several optional cache sizes through both the EAS and in the
Essbase system configuration file or
Essbase.cfg
. You may also be taking steps
to alter the order of the dimensions in the database outline.
We know this isn't really performance related but it is very important! If
there were anything that could be considered as a weakness anywhere
in Essbase, it would be the Essbase security file or
Essbase.sec
.
Because this file is more or less open all the time for system I/O
operations, there is a high potential for the file to become corrupted
in the event of a power outage or other serious event.
If you do encounter a situation where the server needs to be rebooted
unexpectedly, we highly recommend that before you restart the server
or the Essbase service, you make a backup copy of the
Essbase.sec
file. The file itself can be found in the
Essbase\bin
folder.
The shape of your database outline
What are they talking about when we refer to the shape of an Essbase outline?
How can an Essbase database outline have a shape? Well conceptually every
Essbase database outline has a shape. What you want to be concerned with is
what shape your outline has.
Believe it or not, the shape of your outline is one of the most important considerations
for overall database performance, but it is still a guideline. There will be times when
this guideline simply will not work for you.
Everyone knows what an hourglass looks like, right? An hourglass is wide at the
ends and narrow in the middle. Well in most cases, you want your Essbase database
outline to have the shape of an hourglass, really.
The hourglass outline
Here is what we mean by all of this shape nonsense. The shape is determined by
the size and storage type of the dimensions in the Essbase database outline. It is
generally recognized in the Essbase community that the optimal arrangement for
your database outline is as follows:
