Using FIXPARALLEL Parallel Calculation

Although parallel calculation can still be performed using the CALCPARALLEL method, in many cases it might be more beneficial to use the newer FIXPARALLEL command block method.

The Essbase FIXPARALLEL method of parallel calculation lets you select a block of calculation script commands and divide their tasks into parallel threads.

In a FIXPARALLEL command block, you input some commands to be executed, along with a number of threads (numThreads) and a member list (mbrList) specifying the database regions (slices) to be calculated. Essbase creates a list of tasks from the combinations in the member list, and divides the tasks across the threads.

The FIXPARALLEL method can be advantageous in the following cases:

• If you need to use temporary variables during parallel calculation.

• If you need to use the DATACOPY, DATAEXPORT, or CLEARBLOCK calculation commands.

• In conjunction with the @XREF or @XWRITE functions.

• If you need to export regions of the database in parallel.

• In cases where CALCPARALLEL is not meeting performance requirements, and your outline generates many empty tasks, or contains many task groupings with fewer tasks than threads made available to the calculation.