Storage Location Assignment
Whether
we choose remote or local partitioning, location of the partition storage is
yet another criterion upon which to plan our partitions. We might, for
example, plan to create a partition with local storage for current data that we
might expect to query often; in contrast, we might plan to create a remote
partition for the historical data of previous years, upon which we might expect
only minimal need to perform queries.
We noted earlier that we can design storage
for a cube on the Partitions tab in Cube Designer. Moreover, we noted that we
can configure storage and design aggregations separately for each partition in
a measure group. We can also set default storage settings for any measure group.
We can see sample Storage Location settings for a partition of the Internet
Sales measure group by taking the following steps.
1.
Right-click the
Storage Location setting for the Internet_Sales_2003 partition (currently
indicating Default).
2.
Select Properties
from the context menu that appears, as depicted in Illustration 31.
Illustration 31: Selecting Properties for the Internet_Sales_2003 Partition
The Properties
settings for the Internet_Sales_2003 partition appear underneath the Object
Explorer, by default, in the lower right corner of the development environment,
as shown in Illustration 32.
Illustration 32: Properties Settings for the Internet_Sales_2003 Partition
3.
Scroll down in
the Properties settings to the StorageLocation setting.
4.
Click the
label of the StorageLocation setting, to enable the ellipses (“...”) button on
its immediate right, as depicted in Illustration 33.
Illustration 33: Enable the Ellipses (“...”) Button ...
5.
Click the ellipses
(“...”) button.
The
Partition Type Selection dialog for the Internet_Sales_2003 partition appears,
as shown in Illustration 34.
Illustration 34: Partition Type Selection Dialog for the Internet_Sales_2003 Partition
We
typically specify the Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services instance of the cube
that owns the partition, as well as the Analysis Services instance that stores the
data for the partition on the Processing and Storage Locations page of the Partition
Wizard. (We get hands-on exposure to the Partition Wizard in independent
articles of this subseries, where we see that we can define a partition as a remote
partition by specifying either a remote Analysis Services instance or a storage
location other than the default storage location, among other possibilities.)
The Processing
and Storage Location settings on the Partition Type Selection dialog can serve
as potential bases for partition planning, in general. The settings, along
with a description of each, appear in Table 2.
|
Setting
|
Description
|
|
|
|
|
Processing Location Options
|
|
|
Current server instance
|
Makes the current Analysis Services instance responsible for
processing the partition.
|
|
Remote Analysis Services data source
|
Makes a remote Analysis Services instance responsible for
processing this partition.
(From the dropdown list, we can select the data source
representing the remote Analysis Services instance that will be responsible
for processing the partition.)
|
|
New
|
Creates a new data source representing the remote Analysis
Services instance responsible for processing the partition.
|
|
Storage Location Options
|
|
|
Default
server location
|
Makes the data folder of the current Analysis Services instance
the storage location of the aggregation and indexing data for the partition.
|
|
Specified
folder
|
Specifies the storage location of the aggregation and indexing
data for the partition.
The ellipses button (“...”) to the right of this setting displays
the Browse for Remote Folder dialog box in which we can select a folder for Specified
folder.
|
Table
2: Processing and Storage Locations Settings and Descriptions
6.
Click Cancel to
close the Partition Type Selection dialog without saving any changes, and to
return, once again, to the Partitions tab of the Cube Designer.
» 
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