Summary

Real-time solutions aren't just for applications that need up-to-the-minute information; you can also use them to reduce latency to whatever level your business requires. Proactive caching is the foundation for real-time data availability from Analysis Services. Proactive caching works best when the new data is destined for a cube partition that contains only a small amount of recent data. Analysis Services can receive "push" notifications from SQL Server databases that new data has arrived. Other data sources can be polled to determine the availability of new data. You can tune the proactive cache settings to meet any latency requirements, and minimize unnecessary restarts of the partition reprocessing when data arrives in bursts. When proactive caching is reprocessing a partition, the current data is still accessible by users. The partition structure of the cubes will change over time.