Resource Monitoring - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services - page 817

FIGURE 41.4 Memory consumption by Analysis Services objects.

. The number of rows returned as the result of the query is reported in the

Object_Rows_Returned column. This information is useful when analyzing the
performance of a query. For example, sometimes a query needs to read an entire
attribute to return just a few members. In this case, you will notice that the number
of rows scanned is greater than the total number of rows returned and you might
want to optimize the query.

. The number of times aggregation has been hit (or missed) is reported in the

Object_Aggregation_Hit and Object_Aggregation_Miss columns. Armed with this
information, you can fine-tune your aggregation design.

. The amount of memory used by the Analysis Services object is reported in the

Object_Memory_Shrinkable and Object_Memory_NonShrinkable columns. (For more
information about different memory types, see Chapter 27, “Memory
Management.”) The shrinkable memory is the one that can be released by Analysis
Services, if needed. Nonshrinkable memory is the memory used by metadata objects,
for example, which, once loaded into memory, is not released until the object has
been deleted.

Using Perfmon Counters

The Windows operating system reports its resource utilization via a performance-monitor-
ing infrastructure. You can use a perfmon.exe application to monitor a variety of operating
system variables related to the performance of a particular system. The performance-moni-
toring infrastructure is extensible, and any application can publish its own performance-
related statistics. Analysis Services exposes its performance information through the
Perfmon counters. If you run perfmon.exe from the Run prompt, you can select Analysis
Services-specific Perfmon counters.