In getting ready for a recent internal presentation on PowerPivot, I was asked what this button actually does . . . (see below)
The primary purpose for the settings page is to setup diagnostic tracing. The trace file itself is pretty straightforward, it is the regular SSAS tracing subsystem that we know and love . . . get ready to spin up SQL Profiler to read it. But the most common question that I get is “What is that snapshot thing??”.
The best ‘geek’ answer is the code snippet that generates it:
GetSchemaInformation(connection, "DISCOVER_OBJECT_MEMORY_USAGE");
GetSchemaInformation(connection, "DISCOVER_OBJECT_ACTIVITY");
GetSchemaInformation(connection, "DISCOVER_COMMAND_OBJECTS");
GetSchemaInformation(connection, "DISCOVER_STORAGE_TABLES");
GetSchemaInformation(connection, "DISCOVER_STORAGE_TABLE_COLUMNS");
GetSchemaInformation(connection, "DISCOVER_STORAGE_TABLE_COLUMN_SEGMENTS")
As you can see, what it does is to send a series of XMLA Discover commands to the embedded SSAS engine, listing what objects are being used, how often, and what their sizes are. All of it great info . . .
Enjoy!
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