MicroStrategy ONE
Memory Mapped Files for Intelligent Cubes
Memory mapped files (MMF) can be used for effective RAM utilization. For prior releases, either a cube was loaded, residing completely in RAM, or unloaded. Now we look to leverage operating system capabilities to enable more cubes to be ‘loaded’ between RAM and disk.
As shown in the screenshot above, only one cube cache can be loaded in RAM at any given time. With MMF, multiple cube caches can be loaded in RAM.
Requirements
To use MMF, more disk space than system memory is required. The disk space is checked at server startup and logged into DSSErrors.log with a message similar to one of the following errors below. If enabled, it is also checked on subsequent publishings, with additional logging only if the amount of disk drops too low.
Enable MMF as the available disk size (25338925056) on /iserver-install/BIN/Linux is not less than the total physical memory size (7890911232)Disable MMF as the available disk size (5338925056) on /iserver-install/BIN/Linux is less than the total physical memory size (7890911232)
The number of descriptors for Linux, using the nofiles limit, should be set to at least 65535 as mentioned in Recommended System Settings for Linux.
File and Folder Structure
When enabled, a file or set of files are created for each managed cube under a CubeGovern folder, with structure \CubeGovern\{ServerDefiniton}\Server_{machine}_P{project}\MMF\{CubeInstanceID}. This folder may contain a single file for non-partition OLAP cubes, or multiple files for partitioned cubes (based on number of partitions and attributes used) and MTDI cubes (based on number of fact tables, along with partitioning). The location of this CubeGovern folder may vary, but can be found from the DSSErrors entry referenced in the Requirements section. These files are deleted if the cube is completely unloaded, and created when the cube is published or loaded again.
Enable or Disable MMF
The usage of memory mapped files is configurable through MicroStrategy Workstation at the environment, project, and cube (excluding live connect) levels, with the options for the project level shown below.
You can hover over the longer options, such Apply best strategy to maximize performance with given resources and Turn-off the capability without exceptions to view their full text.
The behavior for each of these settings is as follows:
| Value | Behavior |
| Use inherited value (Not available at the environment level) |
Uses the setting determined at higher levels, such as the project for a cube, an environment for a project, etc. |
| Apply best strategy to maximize performance with given resources | Memory mapped files are only created after fetching data and only for cubes smaller than approximately 1 GB. |
| Turn-off the capability without exceptions (Not available at the cube level) |
Memory mapped files not used, regardless of the settings at the lower level. |
| Disable the capability | Memory mapped files are not used, unless they are enabled at a lower level. |
| Enable the capability | Memory mapped files are used, unless disabled at lower level or the disk requirement shown above is not met. |
Troubleshooting
File descriptor on Linux
When using memory mapped files (MMFs) on systems with large numbers of loaded cubes, particularly partitioned cubes, it is possible to exceed the OS-configurable limit of open files per process. The following examples show the errors you may encounter if this limit is met through usage of this feature against a Linux Intelligence server.
The following error is from publishing a cube in MicroStrategy Web.
(QueryEngine encounter error: MFileSystem:OpenStream: ::fopen failed for '/iserver-install/BIN/Linux/MSIReg.reg_lock'. System Error (EMFILE) --- Too many open files. Error in Process method of Component: QueryEngineServer, Project Nico's MD Population Opt for Cubes, Job 908, Error Code= -214721544.)
The same error is encountered from republishing a cube within the dashboard editor in MicroStrategy Workstation.
MMFs are not generated on disk
Please check the available disk space and refer to the previous Requirements section.