During Financial Management configuration, you specify the maximum number of relational database connections used by each application. Financial Management uses connection pooling to communicate with the database. Connection pooling enables more efficient database utilization and does not require that each user be set up in the relational repository.
During configuration, EPM System Configurator enables you to specify the number of pooled database connections. The number of connections that you specify in EPM System Configurator is the maximum number of pooled connections consumed by an application. The pool starts with eight connections. If, after a certain number of attempts, the pool is unable to service a request for an additional connection, it adds eight more connections. The system continues adding blocks of eight connections until it reaches the maximum number of connections defined in the utility. If the system needs an additional connection beyond this limit, a temporary connection is created to service the request, which is closed after the task is complete.
The system also creates additional connection pools that are reserved for system use and are not used for user activity. The system-use pools are divided into these connection types:
A pool of nine connections per application is reserved for system activity.
A pool of eight connections per application is reserved for error handling.
A pool of eight connections per application server is created for user logon activities. The user logon pool can grow by four to the system-defined maximum value of 16 connections. Connections required above the maximum are temporary.
In general, 25 connections are dedicated to system-level activities: eight connections reserved for each application server, and 17 connections reserved for each application.
Connection use is dependent on the activity type. Users with Read access, which are the majority of users in an application, generally use one or no connections. Users with Write access can consume more connections, as they write to the database. The number of connections consumed by a user with Write access, for example, a consolidator, depends on the application server hardware and quantity of data being written. In general, users with Write access may use 5 – 10 connections.
Financial Management opens the defined number of connections when an application is first opened. The connections are then available for subsequent users of the system. If a user process requests a connection, and all connections are in use, the system polls the connection pool for a short time, waiting for an available connection. If no connection is available, the system creates eight connections and adds them to the pool. The connection pool is limited to the total that you define in EPM System Configurator.
Connections are application-specific. The default pool is created only after an application is opened. However, connections are not released on an application basis; they are released on an application server basis. Thus, all connections are not released until the application server has no Financial Management users accessing any application.
Note: | Note that application processes do not shut down even when all users have logged out of all applications if the Financial Management Service is running, because the service perpetuates application instances. In addition, in an environment with more than one Financial Management application server, all users might need to log out of all applications on all servers before the application process shuts down and the database connections are released. In both cases, you must also stop the Financial Management service. |
Financial Management also supports Extended Analytics, which enables extracting data to a relational database for use with other systems, such as Analytic Services. The extract process has a dedicated connection pool that is created when a star schema is created. The default pool is 16 temporary connections that are destroyed when the processing is complete.