Skip to main content

Dashboard performance troubleshooting in MicroStrategy 10



 Dashboard performance troubleshooting in MicroStrategy 10.x

Details of Document Execution Request, introduce the Performance Troubleshooting Cycle, and present links to other resources with detailed steps for troubleshooting specific components that may affect performance.

 To begin, the architecture for dashboard execution is diagrammed here:


MicroStrategy Intelligence Server
When an end user makes a Document Execution Request through any client (a web browser via MicroStrategy Web, the MicroStrategy Desktop/Developer client, the MicroStrategy Mobile app, or the MicroStrategy Office client), the request is sent to the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, which processes the request and prepares the response.

 The MicroStrategy Intelligence Server will execute all children datasets on the dashboard by either generating SQL and running this against the data warehouse, or by fetching data from a cache. The Intelligence Server will first analyze all the templates, then determine which datasets the metrics are from, extend these datasets with runtime relations if necessary, aggregate the metric to desired level, join these datasets on the common attributes, and generate the final view.

 After final result for the grid has been assembled, the Intelligence Server will retrieve the design structure for the dashboard either by querying the metadata for the dashboard definition. Subsequently, the Intelligence Server will then generate the appropriate response type for rendering the dashboard. For Office documents, dashboards executed in DHTML view modes, and Flash dashboards, the Intelligence Server will generate XML, and for PDF documents, the Intelligence Server will generate PDF. For Mobile dashboards, the Intelligence Server will generate a binary in addition to XML.

 When the response generation is complete, the Intelligence Server will send the response to different components depending on which client the original Document Execution Request was initiated from. For requests made from a web browser via MicroStrategy Web, the MicroStrategy Mobile app, or the MicroStrategy Office client, the Intelligence Server will send the response to the MicroStrategy Web Server, the MicroStrategy Mobile Server, or the MicroStrategy Web Services Server respectively for further processing. For requests made from the MicroStrategy Desktop/Developer client, the Intelligence Server will send the response to the Desktop/Developer client directly without going through an additional server.

 MicroStrategy Web Server
End users may render dashboards executed through MicroStrategy Web in DHTML view modes, Flash mode, or PDF. When the MicroStrategy Web Server receives the response from the Intelligence Server for one of these requests, it will transform the Intelligence Server response to the appropriate HTTP response suitable for displaying in the end user browser.

 For dashboards executed in DHTML view modes, the Web Server will transform the Intelligence Server XML response to HTML.
For Flash dashboards, the Web Server will first upload a Flash dashboard viewer component to the end user browser (called DashboardViewer.swf, by default located here on the Web Server machine: C:\Program Files (x86)\MicroStrategy\Web ASPx\swf\DashboardViewer.swf), then forward the Intelligence Server XML response to the DashboardViewer in order for the end user browser to render.
For PDF documents, the Web Server will forward the Intelligence Server PDF response to the end user browser directly.

 MicroStrategy Mobile and Web Services Servers
Dashboards executed through the MicroStrategy Mobile app must go through the MicroStrategy Mobile Server, and dashboards executed through the MicroStrategy Office Client must go through the MicroStrategy Web Services server.
For dashboards executed through Mobile, when the MicroStrategy Mobile Server receives the XML and binary response from the Intelligence Server, it will forward this response to the end user mobile client for further processing.

 The Performance Troubleshooting Cycle


The above chart illustrates the Performance Troubleshooting Cycle. The goal of the cycle is to improve performance by identifying which components are acting as bottlenecks, then making the appropriate modifications to these components specifically, the environment as a whole, or the dashboard itself.

 Monitoring

 The first step of the cycle is to quantify the performance by measuring the time spent in each of the components that are part of a Document Execution Request, as described in the preceding sections. The table below summarizes a few key modules that commonly consume the most amount of time during a dashboard execution:
MicroStrategy ComponentKey Module
Intelligence ServerQuery Execution
Data Preparation
XML generation
Web ServerWeb processes

Network
ClientClient rendering

 To measure the time spent in these components, refer to the following resources:

 Intelligence Server and Client
  • Query Execution - Reference MicroStrategy Product Documentation > System Administration Guide > Chapter 5 for a complete list on how to monitor Job Execution and system usage
  • Data Preparation, XML Generation and Client rendering - KB30914: Overview of Profiling MicroStrategy Documents
Web Server
Optimizing
After bottlenecks have been identified, certain component-level settings can be adjusted to optimize performance. However, since MicroStrategy deployments will typically rely on third-party components, several component-level settings may be outside the scope of MicroStrategy Technical Support but will nonetheless effect MicroStrategy performance. An example of this is an Intelligence Server may perform slowler on a machine with relatively fewer hardware resources (RAM, CPU speed, disk read/write speed, etc.) than a machine with more resources. As another example, an Intelligence Server may also perform slower on a machine with plentiful resources but many other processes running simultaneously in the background compared to a machine dedicated for just the Intelligence Server process. As a final example, an Intelligence Server and a Web Server may generate a document body quickly but a client browser may not be powerful enough to render this document in a short time period.
To adjust component-level settings specific to MicroStrategy, refer to the following resources:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Retrieve a list of user groups and the associated users in MicroStrategy Developer 9.x / 10.x

Retrieve a list of user groups and the associated users in MicroStrategy Developer Follow the steps below to create a list of all groups and the users in each group: In MicroStrategy Developer 9.x, select 'Project Documentation' from the Tools menu to start the wizard. Select any project that is in the project source that contains the users and groups and click Next. Select only Configuration Objects for documentation. Uncheck the 'Basic Properties' object category from the next screen, as shown below: Then select only 'User Group' under the Configuration Objects section and only 'Groups' and 'Members' under the Definition section, as shown below: Go through the rest of the wizard, and open the resulting documentation. After navigating down to the User Groups, the documentation should look similar to the following image: This page shows every group, any child groups, and all members of each group.
Post a Comment
Read more

URL API connection mode parameters

URL API connection mode parameters When using the URL API, to denote which type of Authentication to use, developers can use the connMode parameter.  The following values are used for this parameter: Standard = 1 LDAP Authentication = 16 Database Authentication = 32 Guest = 8 Windows Authentication = 2 Trusted Authentication = 64 Integrated Authentication = 128
Post a Comment
Read more

Microstrategy Dashboard performance improvements steps

Microstrategy  Dashboard performance improvements steps: Many times, causes of poor performance can be simplified to specific components. To troubleshoot performance issues, users must identify these components, then make the appropriate modifications to the environment and/or to the MicroStrategy dashboard to reduce bottlenecks. Dashboard execution stages can be represented below: MicroStrategy Intelligence Server When an end user makes a  Document Execution Request  through any client (a web browser via MicroStrategy Web, the MicroStrategy Desktop/Developer client, the MicroStrategy Mobile app, or the MicroStrategy Office client), the request is sent to the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, which processes the request and prepares the response. The MicroStrategy Intelligence Server will execute all children datasets on the dashboard by either generating SQL and running this against the data warehouse, or by fetching data from a cache. The Inte...
1 comment
Read more

mstrio – Python and R wrappers for the MicroStrategy

mstrio – Python and R wrappers for the MicroStrategy REST APIs Connecting to MicroStrategy  Create a connection to the Intelligence Server using   Connection()   and    connect()  in Python and R, respectively. Required arguments for the   Connection()  function are the URL for the MicroStrategy REST API server, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server username and password, as well as the MicroStrategy project name. By default, the   connect()  function anticipates your MicroStrategy Intelligence Server username and password. LDAP authentication is also supported. Use the optional argument    login_mode=16    in the    connect()  function for LDAP authentication.  Extract data from cubes and reports  To extract data from MicroStrategy cubes and reports, use the   get_cube()  and   get_report()  functions. Use...
8 comments
Read more

Export a Report Services document to Excel with formatting using URL API

Export a Report Services document to Excel with formatting using URL API in MSTR Web In order to export a document in excel format using the URL API, the executionMode must be set to 4.  If excutionMode is not provided in the URL, by default PDF will be used as executionMode.   Below are the list of parameters that the URL must contain in order to execute correctly.   evt= 3069 src= Main.aspx.3069 executionMode= 4 documentID= 7E1644CA424F482DA811569FCE8127FF( Replace the document Id with your document ID)   Sample URL for .NET environment: http://WebServerName/MicroStrategy/asp/Main.aspx?evt=3069&src=Main.aspx. 3069 &executionMode= 4 &documentID= 7E1644CA424F482DA811569FCE8127FF    
1 comment
Read more

Microstrategy Dossiers explained

Microstrategy  Dossiers With the release of MicroStrategy 10.9, we’ve taken a leap forward in our dashboarding capabilities by simplifying the user experience, adding storytelling, and collaboration.MSTR has  evolved dashboards to the point that they are more than dashboards - they are  interactive, collaborative analytic stories . Ultimately, it was time to go beyond dashboards, both in concept and in name, and so  the've  renamed VI dashboards to  ‘ dossiers ’.  Dossiers can be created by using the new Desktop product or Workstation or simply from the Web interface which replaces Visual Insights. All the existing visual Insights dashboards will be converted to Dossiers   With MicroStrategy 10.9, there was an active focus on making it easier to build dashboards for the widest audience of end users. To achieve this, some key new capabilities were added that make it easier to author, read, interact and collaborate on dashboards ...
7 comments
Read more

MicroStrategy URL API Parameters

MicroStrategy URL Structure The following table summarizes the root URL structure used for every request to MicroStrategy Web. Environment Main Application URL Administration URL J2EE http://webserver/MicroStrategy/servlet/mstrWeb http://webserver/MicroStrategy/servlet/mstrWebAdmin .NET http://webserver/MicroStrategy/asp/Main.aspx http://webserver/MicroStrategy/asp/Admin.aspx Every request sent to MicroStrategy Web calls a central controller. Parameters are appended to  Main.aspx  or  mstrWeb  (in a .NET and J2EE environment, respectively) to indicate to the controller how the request should be internally forwarded and handled. The following examples show a URL for accessing a MicroStrategy folder when the user does not have an existing session. The URL contains not only the parameters needed to connect to MicroStrategy Web, but also the parameters needed to log on and create a session. J2EE environment: <a href="http:...
2 comments
Read more

Case functions Microstrategy

Ca se functions Microstrategy Case functions return specified data in a SQL query based on the evaluation of user-defined conditions. In general, a user specifies a list of conditions and corresponding return values. Case This function evaluates multiple expressions until a condition is determined to be true, then returns a corresponding value. If all conditions are false, a default value is returned.  Case  can be used for categorizing data based on multiple conditions. This is a single-value function. Syntax Case ( Condition1 ,  ReturnValue1 ,  Condition2 , ReturnValue2 ,...,  DefaultValue ) Example Case(([Total Revenue] < 300000), 0, ([Total Revenue] < 600000), 1, 2) sum(Case (Day@DESC in (“Sat”,”Sun”), Sales, 0) {~+} Sum(Case(Category@DESC In("Books","Electronics"),Revenue,0)){~+} CaseV (case vector) CaseV  evaluates a single metric and returns different values according to the results. It can be used to perfo...
3 comments
Read more

Microstrategy Custom number formatting symbols

Custom number formatting symbols If none of the built-in number formats meet your needs, you can create your own custom format in the Number tab of the Format Cells dialog box. Select  Custom  as the Category and create the format using the number format symbols listed in the table below. Each custom format can have up to four optional sections, one each for: Positive numbers Negative numbers Zeros Text Each section is optional. Separate the sections by semicolons, as shown in the example below: #,###;(#,###);0;"Error: Entry must be numeric" For more examples, see  Custom number formatting examples . To jump to a section of the formatting symbol table, click one of the following: Numeric symbols Character/text symbols Date and time symbols Text color symbols Currency symbols Conditional symbols Numeric symbols For details on how numeric symbols apply to the Big Decimal data type, refer to the  Project Design Guide . ...
3 comments
Read more

Partition Key Selection guidelines in MicroStrategy

Partition Key Selection guidelines MicroStrategy The partition attribute is typically dictated by specific application needs. Below are some general guidelines for identifying a good partition attribute. Some of the largest fact tables in the application are typically good candidates for partitioning and thus influence the choice of the partition attribute.  Data should be partitioned in such a way that it allows for the most number of partitions to be involved in any question that is asked of the application. Attributes that are frequently used for filtering or selections do not make for good partition attributes. The partition attribute should allow for near uniform distribution of data across the partitions, so that the workload on each partition is evenly distributed. To support best dashboard execution and concurrency performance, MicroStrategy has chosen to limit the number of logical CPUs engaged for any single grid evaluation to  4 . Columns on which some of the larger...
1 comment
Read more