if the following performance issue still an issue in SSAS2005



Please read the 'limit the use of complex named sets' paragraph in the
following link.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro.../ansvcspg.mspx

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Limit the Use of Complex Named Sets
Named sets are useful for sharing common definitions, such as the
current month or last eight quarters. A named set can contain a
constant set of members or an expression that resolves to a set. Named
sets are evaluated and resolved at connection time for each client
connection, regardless of whether the client actually uses the named
set in a query.

Experience has shown that simple named sets perform well, but that
complex named sets (such as an expression filtering for the top five
customers) can reduce query responsiveness, because each complex named
set requires the scanning of many cells by Analysis Services at
connection time. For example, if you have one million customers and
have a named set containing an expression that evaluates the top five
customers, Analysis Services must evaluate all one million customers to
determine the top five customers for each client that establishes a
connection. This query is a very expensive query against a large cube
with many dimension members. If you have multiple named sets, each must
be resolved at connection time before the client can begin querying.

To improve performance in this scenario, consider enumerating the top
five customers in the named set definition, rather than calculating the
top five customers with every connection. You can then periodically
update the contents of the named set by changing the named set
definition (this does not require any processing).

in AS2005 the sets are evaluated when used, not when the cube is opened like
in AS2000
so this improve the performance.



<bsullivan (AT) qg (DOT) com> wrote