Sample Data Access Questions

Before you begin analyzing the access activity of your site, you should review the following sample data access questions, which can be answered using Resource Analyzer. Following each question are a few of the important decisions you can make based on Resource Analyzer's answers. You will see that getting answers to even fairly simple questions can help you reduce system usage costs, improve query performance, reduce your administrative efforts, increase IS service levels to end users, and improve effective use of information by end users.

Question: Who is running requests?

All service organizations can benefit by initially confirming who their users or customers are.

Question: What are the implications of request results being stored? For example, how much report writing is done from screen display, or how much output is to files, spreadsheets, or saved data sources?

Reports that users produce on a regular basis can be scheduled and automatically distributed. Knowing how much output goes to extract or flat files provides estimates on temporary disk space requirements. Data placed in spreadsheets or saved data sources may prove useful to others.

Question: Which requests run the longest?

Long-running requests are typically good candidates for performance-tuning improvements. The reorganization of logic or even the simple addition of an index can save hours of processing time for a single request. Long-running requests can be scheduled to run at off-peak hours to reduce the performance impact on the overall system.

Question: How frequently are certain requests run?

The same request run multiple times by different users, each producing the same output, could be executed once with a distribution of the report to the necessary users. Requests that are run regularly by users may be scheduled.

Question: Which requests use which data sources, views, or columns?

Data sources often require column revision or content modification. Knowing which requests use these data sources and/or columns provides quantitative information for determining the impact of such revisions and allows for a complete implementation of the necessary changes.

Question: Which columns are often used in WHERE conditions and which combinations of WHERE conditions are frequently included?

Columns that are often used in equality conditions may be good candidates for indexing. Combinations of WHERE conditions identify a potential new data source of information that can be placed in a warehouse environment or otherwise adapted to provide for faster access of the required information.

Question: What data is not used at all?

Unused information can be removed, thus reducing disk-space usage and improving request performance. Evidence of unused, or dormant, data may also indicate that the needs of the users require better analysis.

Question: How detailed is the use of the data? Are most users summarizing or averaging the data and on which columns?

Information about how data is used can identify columns that should be precalculated for faster access or reduced storage requirements.

Question: What time periods are being accessed? Do users examine only the last five of the 10 years you have made available? Do users visit the archive?

Information about which data is used allows intelligent decisions to be made concerning which portion of the data should be archived for efficient use of system storage.

Additional Questions You May Want to Investigate With Resource Analyzer:

This section has introduced just a few of the issues that can be addressed using Resource Analyzer. You can begin your analysis of ad hoc data access at your site by seeking answers to these and other questions. Once you are comfortable with the capabilities of Resource Analyzer, you can formulate further questions specifically designed to meet the needs of your organization. The questions you choose to ask will help you decide how to configure Resource Analyzer Usage Monitoring capabilities and, later, which Resource Analyzer reports to view.


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