IBM Cognos User Manual page 213

PowerCube Build Performance
The following preferences have an impact on PowerCube build performance.
v <Preference Name="MultiProcessing" Value="1"/>
Use this preference to choose between the type of multiprocessing used in this
version of IBM Cognos BI and the type used in version 8.4.
In this version of the product, flat file, package and report data sources are read
using multiple threads. One thread reads data records, and another thread
processes them. This improves performance during the data read phase. In
addition, multiprocessing is supported for Unicode flat files.
In version 8.4, flat files use the IBM Cognos Series 7 type of multiprocessing,
which is less efficient, while packages and reports have no multiprocessing at
all.
By default, this preference has a value of 1 (enabled), which represents the type
of multiprocessing used in this version of IBM Cognos BI. Setting this preference
to 0 reverts multiprocessing to the type used in version 8.4.
v <Preference Name="WorkFileCompress" Value="1"/>
Use this preference to choose whether to compress temporary files generated
during PowerCube builds. Compressing temporary files significantly improves
input/output performance.
By default, this preference is enabled (value of 1). You can disable it (value of 0)
if you are using a RAM disk or a very fast RAID disk to hold temporary work
files.
v WorkFileMaxSize
This setting specifies the threshold number of bytes at which Cognos
Transformer splits its work files. The minimum is 1000000000 and the maximum
is 1500000000. The default value is 1500000000.
v <Preference Name="WorkFileSortMethod" Value="1"/>
Use this preference to choose between new sorting methods introduced in this
version of Cognos Transformer and the type of sorting used in Cognos
Transformer 8.4.
This version of Cognos Transformer introduces an improved multi-threaded sort
and single-threaded sort.
You can specify the following settings for this preference:
– 0 - represents Cognos Transformer 8.4-style of sorting
– 1 - represents multi-threaded sort (default)
– 2 - represents single-threaded sort
Note: If this preference is set to 0, temporary files created during sorting are
placed in the temp directory defined in IBM Cognos Configuration. In IBM
Cognos Series 7, this functionality was controlled by the TEMPFILEDIRsetting.
v <Preference Name="WorkFileSortThreads" Value="3"/>
Use this preference when WorkFileSortMethod is set to multi-threaded sort (value
of 1) to specify the number of sorting threads.
Depending on hardware resources, it may be beneficial to set this preference to 2
or 3 (default).
When WorkFileSortMethod is set to 1 or 2, Cognos Transformer processes the
amount of memory specified by the preference WorkFileMaxSize during the
sorting. The WorkFileMaxSize default is 1,500,000,000 bytes, which may be too
high, depending on the hardware resources and Cognos Transformer model size.
The value of WorkFileMaxSize should match the amount of physical memory
Chapter 9. Guidelines for Optimizing Production Environments
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