Processing Cubes

Analysis Services

Analysis Services

Processing Cubes

When you process a cube, the aggregations designed for the cube are calculated and the cube is loaded with the calculated aggregations and data. Processing a cube involves reading the dimension tables to populate the levels with members from the actual data, reading the fact table, calculating specified aggregations, and storing the results in the cube. After a cube has been processed, users can query it.

Caution  Referential integrity of the data warehouse is not verified by Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services during processing. For example, if the cube's fact table contains foreign key values that are not present in a joined dimension table's primary key column, the rows that contain those values are not processed. In this case, processing does not produce an error message, but the cube contains incomplete and, therefore, inaccurate data.

Before attempting to browse the cube, you must process the cube if you perform any of the following tasks:

  • Building the cube and designing its storage options and aggregations.

  • Changing the cube's structure (measures, dimensions, and so on) and saving the changes to the cube.

  • Changing the structure of a shared dimension used in the cube.

Also, if data in the cube's data warehouse has been added or changed, processing is recommended in order to ensure accurate results when browsing the cube.

Note  Newly processed cubes are visible to end users only after they reconnect to the server computer.

Cube Processing Options

Each of the following three processing options is appropriate in different circumstances:

  • Full Process

  • Incremental update

  • Refresh data

In addition to these three mutually exclusive options, you can select a fourth option, Incrementally update the dimensions of this cube, in conjunction with any of these options. This option allows you to incrementally update the cube's dimensions as part of the cube processing.

These options are available in the Process a Cube dialog box, which is displayed when you right-click a cube in the Analysis Manager tree pane and then click Process.

To process a cube