Scale-Out Querying with Analysis Services

This white paper describes how to set up a load-balanced scalable querying environment for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services so that you can handle a large number of concurrent queries to your Analysis Services servers. Load-balanced querying ensures that readers of OLAP cubes can consistently query for the latest aggregations throughout the day and distribute the load of all queries among the available servers. This scale-out querying architecture optimizes cube processing time, increases the frequency of cube update, and makes processing more robust as you can afford more frequent processing and transparent error recovery.

Introduction

This white paper provides details on how to set up a load-balanced scalable querying environment for Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Analysis Services. Load-balanced querying ensures that readers of OLAP cubes can consistently query for the latest aggregations throughout the day and distribute the load of all queries among the available servers. This architecture provides the following improvements:

• Optimizes cube processing time. With a server devoted to cube processing, you can optimize your tasks and/or configurations specific to cube processing.
• Increases the frequency of cube updates. Because there are separate servers for querying and processing, cubes can be updated more often if necessary.
• Makes the processing mechanism more robust. With a server devoted to cube processing, you can afford more frequent processing and transparent error recovery.

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