We are in the process of moving to Analysis services and
need to make a few assessment. What we like to know is
what is everyone's experience with cube processing. We
are primarily concern of how long cube processing takes.

If you can share your configuration of your cubes, number
of aggregates, number of rows you process per batch,
number of dimensions, number of partitions, etc., and how
long it takes to process your cube I would deeply
appreciate it.

The general rule-of-thumb that I use is that a server-class machine with a
quality I/O subsystem, processing a partition (which has had the "Optimize
Schema" tool from the cube editor ran on it) should process about a million
rows per minute. If you are running considerably longer than that, then
there is some problem, such as not eliminating the joins (the optimize
schema wizard does this), having a slow ODBC connection, you are
over-aggregating the cube, etc.
--
Dave Wickert [MSFT]
dwickert (AT) online (DOT) microsoft.com
Program Manager
BI SystemsTeam
SQL BI Product Unit (Analysis Services)
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Dave Reiht" <anonymous (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

I migrated our Essbase models to AS cubes a few years ago. Do to the
architecture of the two systems it is not a clear cut comparison when talking
about aggregations and number of rows. For example in Essbase if you want to
have 100% aggregations you get every permutation, even nulls. In AS if you
choose 100% efficiency you don’ get every possible permutation.

However saying that I have found that AS has a much faster “time to market”
(building, processing etc) than Essbase and the retrieval times are almost
as quick as Essbase.

Example – We had a monthly sales model on Essbase, it had 6 dimensions with
a sample of 1m records at 100% aggregations and took almost 2 hours to
process. It’s AS counterpart had 9 dimensions (4 of which were at a deeper
granularity), 1m records, 32% efficiency and took less than 20 minuets to
process. On an Essbase retrieval time of 3 seconds, the same record set from
AS took 4.5 seconds.

All in all I find AS much better to work with as it cuts time and reduces
maintenance the only drawbacks are I miss the Essbase excel add-in and having
measures as a dimension.

Hope all goes well. If you have any questions post your e-mail address and I
contact you.

There are excel add-ins for Analysis Services that provide Essbase
style capabilities .. not identical obviously, some better some worse
... and there are ex essbase partners/customers using them that like
them ..

XLCubed has a free format non formula based mode as does QBEX .. Its
worth taking a look and running them with reasonable size data volumes
... I know that we would be happy to show you and I am sure qbex would
as well.

Thanks

Mark Scanlon
XLCubed

Here is a partial list of Excel Add-Ins which work with Analysis Services:

a.. Microsoft Office Excel Add-in for SQL Server Analysis Services
http://www.microsoft.com/office/solu...n/default.mspx
a.. XLCubed http://www.xlcubed.com
a.. IntelligentApps http://www.intelligentapps.com
a.. MIS Plain http://www.misag.com
a.. BIXL http://www.bixl.com
a.. QBEX http://www.advanceinfo.com/qbex
a.. Visual OLAP http://www.visualolap.com
a.. O2OLAP http://www.o2olap.com
a.. OLAP NaviGo http://www.olapnavigo.com
a.. Panorama NovaView Excel http://www.panoramasoftware.com

Some non-vendor reviews

a.. Nigel Pendse's review in OLAP Report
http://www.olapreport.com/products/O...readsheets.htm
a.. Microsoft Analysis Services + Full Function Excel Add-Ins. The Perfect
Combination - whitepaper by Nigel Pendse
http://www.misag.com.au/include/news...20Services.pdf
a.. John Keeley's reviews
a.. http://www.johnkeeley.com/excel_add-...ctionality.htm
b.. http://www.johnkeeley.com/excel_add-ins_speed_test.htm

--
==================================================
Mosha Pasumansky - http://www.mosha.com/msolap
Analysis Services blog at http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/mosha
Development Lead in the Analysis Server team
All you need is love (John Lennon)
Disclaimer : This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights.
==================================================

o2olap can also show you similar functionlaity to Essbase, and has a couple
of options when creating free format reports, including the one detailed
below, which was reported on this forum some time ago. o2olap is quite
willing to demonstrate innovative functionality that is not detailed on our
website or through commentator reviews. We let our clients vouch for the
functionality and innovation.

Howard.Taylor@ domain below
www.o2olap.com

"MPS" <mark.scanlon (AT) xlcubed (DOT) com> wrote