The Power of 64-bit

Essbase
Tim Tow Edward Roske
Applied OLAP interRel Consulting
 Disclaimer
These slides represent the work and opinions
of the presenter and do not constitute official
positions of Hyperion or any other
organization.
This material has not been peer reviewed and is
presented here with the permission of the
presenter.
This material should not should not be
reproduced without the written permission of
interRel Consulting or Applied OLAP.
 Today‟s Agenda
• Introductions
• What 64-bit Essbase really means
• What platforms are supported, and for what
versions
• Strategies for scaling
About Applied OLAP
 interRel - Founded in 1997
• 25+ Hyperion Presentations at Collaborate
• Founding Hyperion Platinum Partner; now an
Oracle Certified Partner
• Focused on Oracle Hyperion software
• 100% of our consultants are Hyperion Certified
Professionals
• 250+ projects completed
• Optimization improvements of more than 99%
• Regular presenter at Hyperion‟s users‟ groups and solutions
conferences
• Free weekly Thursday webcasts (info@interrel.com)
5
 Look Smarter Than You Are
with Essbase
• 3 Essbase Books Available:
– Complete Guide
– System 9 Complete Guide
– End User Guide

• Find out more at

www.interrel.com
• Search lulu.com for „Essbase‟ to
see all 3 books

6 Copyright © 2007, Hyperion. All rights reserved.

 Quick Polls
• Operating Environment
• Hardware Vendor
• Interest in 64-bit Essbase
16-bit vs. 32-bit vs. 64-bit
 128-bit Essbase – Coming
Soon
• Supports outlines of up to 21024 members
(theoretical)

• Will address up to 2 gBs (GoogolBytes) of data

• In a laboratory, they were able to build an

Essbase cube that can store the current contents
of the internet

• “The plan” is to enter beta testing “sometime after

this year”
Okay, now seriously.
 HP/Hyperion Press Release
• …unmatched scalability and performance, lower total
cost of ownership (TCO) and a secure investment as
scalability requirements increase over time
• …even more users can handle increasingly large
data volumes and create even more complex and
numerous analytical applications
• …going deeper into data and across the enterprise
with no compromise to performance or end-user
functionality
• …tangible improvements in performance and
scalability
 AMD/Hyperion Press
Release
The new access to 64-bit versions of Essbase Analytics and
Enterprise Analytics allows Hyperion and AMD customers to
run larger analytical models in less time, extend the potential
size of their analytic applications, increase the number of
concurrent users, and boost the number of analytic
applications running at any given time. Tests show a 50%
reduction in processing time for some Enterprise Analytics
file loads when moving from current 32-bit processors to 64-
bit processors.
 The real benefits, in our
opinion…

1. Build larger databases

2. Improve performance by using enterprise-
class hardware
3. Improve performance by testing various
existing settings
 Larger Databases
• 32-bit Databases were limited in size
– Code limited at ~14 million members
– Practical limitation of ~8 million members
• Partitioning provides a passable solution

• 64-bit Databases are practically unlimited

– Several customers have tested >8 million
member outlines
– Hyperion Development has tested 80 million
member databases
 Specific Differences in 32-bit
and 64-bit Essbase

32-bit 64-bit
Maximum Data/Data File 2/3/4 GB* Unlimited**
Cache
Parallel Calc Threads (BSO) 4 8
Parallel Load Threads (ASO) 16 32
Agent & Server Threads 500 1024
Default Retrieval Buffers 10 KB 20 KB
Maximum Outline Size 8 million Unlimited**

* Dependant on the Operating System

** For all current practical purposes
 Old settings, new world
• Covered Today:
– Data Cache
– Parallel Calculation/Aggregation
– Dense/Sparse
– I/O Mode

• Revisit Others:
– Index Cache
– Dynamic Calc
– Attribute Dimensions
– More…
 The 7.1.4 Admin Services
Trap
EAS Console
Essbase 7.1.4
EAS 7.1.4

EAS 7.1.6
 Using
MEMSCALINGFACTOR
• This is required to increase the Data
(Buffered I/O) and Data File Cache (Direct
I/O) sizes
• Set in essbase.cfg:

MEMSCALINGFACTOR Sample Basic 1000

• Technical Reference uses an example of 32

• Reported differently in EAS vs. MaxL (7.1.4)
Platform Support
 Enterprise-Class Hardware
• Amazing performance advances have been
made in all levels of servers in the past five
years
• When you want to build monstrous cubes,
buy a monstrous server
• CPU‟s are more parallel
• Memory is faster and more efficient
• Disk and network I/O is blazingly fast (and flexible!)
 64-bit Support in Essbase
Essbase 7 Essbase 9
HP-UX 7.1.4 9.0 +
Windows 2003 IA-64 7.1.4 9.0 +
Solaris 9, 10 9.3 +
AIX 5.2, 5.3 9.3 +
Windows 2003 x64 9.3 +

• As of 9.3 forward:
– Linux is still 32-bit only
– Windows sites have a choice of 32 or 64-bit
Essbase
 64-bit Adoption – Industry
View
• HP-UX, AIX, and Solaris have been 64-bit Operating Systems for nearly
a decade
• ISV adoption has been slow, customer adoption even slower

Product First 64-bit Release Date

Microsoft SQL Server SQL Server 2000 May 2002
Microsoft SQL Server SQL Server 2005 Nov 2005
Oracle 10g Release 1 May 2004
Oracle 10g Release 2 Jul 2006
IBM DB2 8.1 Nov 2002
BEA WebLogic 8.1 Mar 2003
SAP R/3 Apr 2003
Hyperion Essbase 6.5 Aug 2004
Scalability Techniques
 Scalability Goals
1. Reduce the calc/agg time for a single
database

2. Reduce the complete batch cycle

3. Server consolidation
 Technique 1: Increase Block
Size
• Essbase DBA Guide (which is wrong, by the way):
“A data block size of 8Kb to 100Kb provides optimal
performance in most cases.”

• With the 64-bit engine, larger blocks in the 1 MB range have

shown significant reductions in calculation times

• Performance gains are attributable to wider bandwidth disk and

memory buffer subsystems handling larger I/O chunks
 Technique 2: Increase
CALCPARALLEL
• Parallel Calculation has two components:
– Threads
– Task dimensions
• Set up a batch job to test each database for suitability

Threads 1 2 3 4
Task Dims 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
Database A 1000 1100 900 910 850 860 700 775

Database B 2000 2050 1500 1350 1400 1300 1375 1250

• Performance gains attributable mainly to advanced parallelism in modern

CPU design
 Technique 3: Increase
Database Parallelism
• 32-bit Windows systems usually see one or two
simultaneous batch jobs
• Enterprise-class servers can handle dozens of
simultaneous jobs

Time to
complete
job Time to
complete
job
• Performance gains attributable to advanced
parallelism in modern CPU design
 Technique 4: Increase Data
Cache
• Increasing the data cache can significantly decrease the
amount of time to calculate a BSO cube
• Watch for diminishing returns

Time

Data Cache

Performance due to I/O and system buffer improvements, but this is also
required with larger database designs
 Technique 5: Undo previous
workarounds
• There are many ways to take “shortcuts” with
Essbase:
– Dynamic Calc/Dynamic Calc and Store
– Reducing the number of dimensions, or combining
– “Unnatural” Dense/Sparse settings

• Quite often these settings will have an adverse

effect in the face of other 64-bit optimizations
where the data throughput is much greater and
more linear
 Technique 6: Try Direct I/O
• Direct I/O has been explicitly NOT
recommended by Hyperion for years
• With more expensive storage subsystems
this setting can work by giving them more
control over reads and writes
• Expect +/- 20% performance impact
• Hyperion might be turning this option off for
good
Performance due to I/O improvements
 Summary of Scalability
Scenarios
Single Batch Consolidation
1MB Block Size
Parallel Calc
Simultaneous Loads
Data Cache
Undo Workarounds
Direct I/O

Intended Purpose
Apply Caution
 64-bit Essbase – Key Points
• Be careful when reading press releases
• There is now no known ceiling to Essbase
cube size
• Every cube is different (still)
• Understand your performance goals before
starting to test
• Spending the time to optimize can pay big
dividends
interRel is ready to assist you with 64-bit
migration and optimization
 128-bit Essbase – Coming
Soon
• Supports outlines of up to 21024
members (theoretical)

• Will address up to 2 GoogolBytes of

data

• In a laboratory, they were able to build

an Essbase cube that can store the
current contents of the internet
 Thank you!!!
Questions and Answers

Tim Tow Edward Roske

Applied OLAP interRel Consulting