When configuring measure groups in SSAS, you want to make sure you address a few important properties. They are show in the screenshot, but let’s talk about them and what they do.
IgnoreUnrelatedDimensions
Ignoring Unrelated Dimensions controls the way an unrelated measure is rolled up based on if there is a relationship or not.
ProcessingMode
Processing mode is normally set to regular and means that it will be processed as part of the cube and nor asynchronously as the LazyAggregation Setting will show.
Type
You can control some of the built in functionality like the calculation defaults, etc. The different types are shown below.
ProactiveCaching
Proactive caching is the feature that enables the cube to poll for new data and keep itself up to date. This property will tell you if it’s turned on for this particular measure group.
StorageMode
This defines the mode the partitions are using to store this measure group. This can include
- MOLAP – Multi-Dimensional OLAP, where all data, indexes, aggregations are stored in the analysis services database. – This is the fastest method and provides the longest processing time, and the fastest end user performance and scalability.
- HOLAP – Hybrid OLAP, where the aggregations, and indexes are stored in the analysis services database, but the data stays in the relational database. – This is slower, but allows the most up to date data.
- ROLAP – Relational OLAP, where the data and all aggregations, indexes, etc.. Are stored back in the relational database. This is the slowest but provides live data.