Enabling an Always-On Space

Enable Always-On to ensure high availability and simultaneous access to reports and dashboards while a space is processing. Birst replicates and creates a "shadow space" for this purpose.

Prerequisites for Always-On

By default Always-On is not enabled for all accounts; it is an add-on feature. To get Always-On contact your Infor representative.

Always-On applies to Cloud and Appliance deployments using either SQL Server 2014 or Exasol. Other configurations are not supported.

Always-On applies to Advanced spaces only.

Always-On applies to processing engine 5.16 and newer.

By default there is a 50 GB limit to the size of the space. This limit is configurable. If you have a larger data store, contact your Birst representative.

Important: Because it replicates the data, Always-On requires additional space resources.

If you are a Cloud customer, contact your Birst representative to discuss your requirements.

If you are using an Appliance, make sure that you have at least as much additional space as your current space size. You can see current space size on the Home page.

Enable Always-On only when there are no other processing tasks in progress.

Important Use Case considerations for Always-On

Important: In Birst 5 ADR spaces, the query language relies on surrogate keys to join a dimension to fact table. If the Parent Space for a Managed Data Mashup (MDM) is an Always-On space, the surrogate keys can change when the data is being processed preventing the child space fact table from joining with the Parent space dimension table due to the mismatch of the surrogate keys. A similar case applies for an Always-On child space.

Birst does not recommend a use case for MDM when both the Parent and Child spaces are Always-On spaces as the surrogate keys are not guaranteed to be consistent when the spaces are being processed.

Note: Modeler Networking does not rely on surrogate keys to join Parent Child tables.

See Child Fact to Parent Dimension Join Example for more details on this corner case issue. Specifically, the Using Complex Joins Instead of Grains to Join Parent and Child Tables example.

Important: Reports and reports published on a dashboard should always display data, and you should be able to apply dashboard's filters/prompts when processing an Always-On space.

  • A known issue is that you cannot query reports & reports published on dashboards during data processing for normal spaces. In these scenarios, the Always-On feature ensures high availability and simultaneous access to reports and dashboards while a space is processing.
  • There is a scenario where you do not have access to data for a period of time (10-15 seconds) in an Always-On space, depending on the size of the space metadata during post data processing steps.
  • An error message may display stating "No data returned. Try changing filters" with reports and reports published on dashboard during post-processing steps such as repository initialization, clearing cache, reloading repository, and so on. During this process, dashlets are temporarily unavailable. Additionally, the space needs a few seconds post-processing to perform space context loading activities.

To enable Always-On for existing spaces

For each space:

  1. Go to Admin > Manage Space > Modify Properties.

  2. Select Always-On.

  3. Click Save.

A red ball displays next to the check box during the enablement process. The red ball disappears when the space is enabled for Always-On.

To enable Always-On for new Advanced spaces

You must have permission to create spaces.

  1. Click Add Space.

  2. In the Create New Space window, click Advanced Data Modeling.

  3. Select Always-On.

The new space automatically creates and maintain a replicated "shadow space".

After Always-On is Enabled

Users can access dashboards and reports while other processing occurs.

There is an additional log file created. Instead of a single log file, there is a ZIP with two files.

Space Operations with Always-On

Always-On affects certain space operations as described in the following table.

Space Operation Space 1 Space 2 Expected Behavior
Swap Space Always-On non-Always-On Swap not allowed
Swap Space Always-On Always-On Swap Allowed (Always-On details including AlwaysOnSchema, AlwaysOnConnectString, AlwaysOnAdminUser, AlwaysOnAdminPWD are also swapped)
Copy Space Always-On Not applicable Birst does not copy the Always-On property for a space to the target Space. Any Always-On connection from the source space is removed when copied to a new space.