...Memory utilisation in HFM

Since version 11.x, Oracle has released the 64-bit version of HFM. The benefit is that the 64-bit version of HFM can hold more data in memory comparing to the 32-bit version.

Based on Oracle documentation, HFM virtual address space is dictated by the OS. So, if you have an application with large subcubes (large scenarios, dense data, big number of scenario) which struggles in the 32-bit environment,

the 64-bit environment is the best solution and you need to customise the HFM settings in order to make use of the additional memory.

To customise the memory utilisation of an application and achieve the best performance a number of settings needs to be customised.

•  MaxNumDataRecordsinRAM: The number of records that is held in memory

• MaxDataCacheSizeInMB: This setting controls the maximum amount of memory that the Financial Management application server allocates to store the cell values and cell status. If more memory is required by the system, then the cell value and cell status are paged out to disk based on the LRU logic.

• MaxNumCubesInRAM: The number of subcubes that is held in memory by the FreeLRU mechanism

• You need to take into consideration the available physical memory and the number of applications

Additionally, you need to configure the settings for the LRU mechanism:

• NumCubesLoadedBeforeCheckingLRU: The number of subcubes to trigger the FreeLRU mechanism

• NumMinutesBeforeCheckingLRU: Intervals in minutes to trigger the FreeLRU mechanism

Disclaimer: Theoretically, all the above ideas and settings will improve the performance of you system but… there is a big bold BUT. If you do not calculate the values of these settings properly you will end up with performance issues or cases that HFM does not utilises the available memory efficiently. Additionally, if Oracle decides to change the mechanism, performance maybe impacted and you will probably need to reconfigure these settings. 

Since you managed to reach the end of the post and you are still interested, stop everything. Forget what I just wrote and open the Oracle portal, download the manual of your version and go through the optimising performance section in order to read the details of the above settings. 

Finally, if you are not sure, ask an experienced HFM consultant to support you.