Maximum size of a dimension

[Former Member]

Is there a maximum size of a dimension? I know there are limits for the number of properties and the size of a row. However, is there a limit to the overall size of the dimension or a "best practice" as far as sizing dimensions?

[rajkumar_kandula · Accepted solution]

Hi Lindsay,

You can have a look at SAP Note 1099564 - OutlookSoft dimension size calculator that discuss about the dimension size. This note also contains a attached excel file that works as dimension size calculator. Hope this helps you.

Regards,

Rajkandula

[Former Member]

This response was the same information as the calcultor response that was sent. I do appreciate the input, but it is not quite what I am looking for. The documentation that I have found and been referenced to is related to the number of properties in a dimension (more like the length and I am looking for depth of dimension) and the maximum size of a record versus the maximum number of records. I am assuming there is no best practice recommendation because I did not find any in the BPC documentation and no one has been able to give me that reference, but if it is out there I would appreciate if someone would share their knowledge.

Thank you for your input.

[Former Member]

Hi,

Based on one of the documents from SAP,

When you are creating dimensions for your application set you should be aware of the following maximums for any one dimension.

u2022 The maximum number of fields in a table (a dimension = 1 table) is 1024.

u2022 The maximum record size is 8064 bytes (a record = 1 row in a table)

The two maximums above relate to the underlying SQL database in which BPC information and data is stored. They need further explanation as to how they relate to a BPC dimension. In BPC a field equals a property. So you can have up to 1024 properties in a dimension. One other factor that has an impact on the actual number of properties you can have in a dimension is the number of levels you have defined. SQL Server creates a set of properties for each level within the dimension. For example, you have 10 properties and three levels in your dimension, your total number of fields is 30. The second limiting factor is the size of the record. To determine record size you have to figure out the number of bytes (a byte equals a character) in each level. Since levels are repeated you only need to figure out the number of bytes in the first level and then multiply that number by the number of levels. To come up with the total number of bytes for a level you simply add up the field size for each field and multiply it by 2 (1 character = 2 bytes).

Hope this gives you some idea.

[Former Member]

I do not think this is quite what I am looking for....

It looks like according to this to calculate the size of a dimension it only looks at only the record size, number of levels and number of hierarchies. I want to know if I have (Let's say a flat hierarchy, one level, one hierarchy) what is the maximum number of members I can have. I am looking for what the maximum number of members can be in a flat dimension. I assume it is 1,048,575 because it looks like the SEQ goes up to 8 characters so it could in theory handle 999,999,999 but it would hit the Excel 2007 limit before that. I was also trying to find out if there is a "best practice" (like we should not go up to that limit). (And I also guess we coudl exceed the excel limit, but at that point the dimension could not longer be maintained in an excel spreadsheet?)