Dimension: ProcessUpdate - Insight

ProcessUpdate applies only to Dimension. It is the equivalent of incremental dimension processing in Analysis Services 2000. It sends SQL queries to read the entire dimension table and applies the changes-member updates, additions, deletions.

Since ProcessUpdate reads the entire dimension table, it begs the question, "How is it different from ProcessFull?" The difference is that ProcessUpdate does not discard the dimension storage contents. It applies the changes in a "smart" manner that preserves the fact data in dependent partitions. ProcessFull, on the other hand, does an implicit ProcessClear on all dependent partitions. ProcessUpdate is inherently slower than ProcessFull since it is doing additional work to apply the changes.