Best Practices for Recording Intelligence Server Statistics

MicroStrategy recommends the following best practices for logging Intelligence Server statistics:

Configure your system for single instance session logging, so that all projects for a project source use the same statistics repository. This can reduce duplication, minimize database write time, and improve performance. For information about single instance session logging, see Overview of Intelligence Server Statistics.
Use the sizing guidelines (see Sizing Guidelines for the Statistics Repository) to plan how much hard disk space you need for the statistics repository.
Use Enterprise Manager to monitor and analyze the statistics information. For more information about Enterprise Manager, see the Enterprise Manager Help

Sizing Guidelines for the Statistics Repository

The following guidelines can help you determine how much space you need for the statistics repository. These guidelines are for planning purposes; MicroStrategy recommends that you monitor the size of your statistics repository and adjust your hardware requirements accordingly.

When the Basic Statistics, Report Job Steps, Document Job Steps, Report SQL, Report Job Tables/Columns Accessed, and Prompt Answers statistics are logged, a user executing a report increases the statistics database size by an average of 70 kilobytes.
This value assumes that large and complex reports are run as often as small reports. In contrast, in an environment where more than 85 percent of the reports that are executed return fewer than 1,000 cells, the average report increases the statistics database size by less than 10 kilobytes.
When the Subscription Deliveries and Inbox Messages statistics are logged, each subscription that is delivered increases the statistics database size by less than 100 kilobytes. This is in addition to the database increase from logging the report execution.
When performance counters are logged to the statistics database, each performance counter value that is logged increases the database size by an average of 0.4 kilobyte. You can control this table's growth by specifying what counters to log and how often to log each. For more information on logging performance counters to the statistics database, including instructions, see Overview of Intelligence Server Statistics.

To determine how large a database you need, multiply the space required for a report by the number of reports that will be run over the amount of time you are keeping statistics. For example, you may plan to keep the statistics database current for six months and archive and purge statistics data that are older than six months. You expect users to run an average of 400 reports per day, of which 250, or 63 percent, return fewer than 1,000 rows, so you assume that each report will increase the statistics table by about 25 kilobytes.

25 KB/report * 400 reports/day * 30 days/month * 6 months = 1,800,000 KB or 1.8 GB

According to these usage assumptions, you decide to allocate 2 GB of disk space for the statistics database.