Azure SSAS scaling up and down

Question

Below is our scenario:

We are on Azure Analysis Services on Tier S1.

We'd like to scale up to Tier S2 in the evening to do a full process.

After processing is complete, we'd like to scale back down to Tier S1.

Questions:

1. When we scale up, roughly how long does it take?
2. Is there any downtime to end users when we scale up?
3. After Azure is finished scaling up, is the cube available for querying or does it need to be re-processed in any way? (I assume, it's ready)
4. After we finish scaling down, is the cube available for querying or does it need to be re-processed? (I assume, it's ready)

There is unfortunately not a lot of documentation on vertical scaling on Microsoft's sites

Answer 1

Hello @Gabriel Flores , here are the answers for the questions:

Questions:

1. When we scale up, roughly how long does it take?

   Scaling up an Azure AS instance doesn’t take more than 5 mins.

2. Is there any downtime to end users when we scale up?

   Scaling up is nothing but restarting the instance. So yes there will be a downtime for the end users.

3. After Azure is finished scaling up, is the cube available for querying or does it need to be re-processed in any way? (I assume, it's ready)

   If it is just scaling up and not scale out then all the cube will be ready for querying as soon as the scaling is completed.

4. After we finish scaling down, is the cube available for querying or does it need to be re-processed? (I assume, it's ready)

   Yes, the cube will be ready for querying as soon as the scale down is completed.

P.S. Vertical scaling i.e. changing just the pricing tier doesn’t need a refresh of the models. Horizontal scaling i.e. adding/removing additional query replica also doesn’t need a refresh of the models. However you need to perform a synchronisation of the models to only those additional replicas that you have added. For deletion of replica you don’t synchronisation as well.

HTH
JAIDEEP

Answer 2

Hello @Gabriel Flores ,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A platform.

When we scale up, roughly how long does it take?

When scaling out, it can take up to five minutes for new query replicas to be incrementally added to the query pool.

Is there any downtime to end users when we scale up?

During scale-out operations, all servers in the query pool, including the primary server, are temporarily offline.

After Azure is finished scaling up, is the cube available for querying or does it need to be re-processed in any way? (I assume, it's ready)

When scaling out, it can take up to five minutes for new query replicas to be incrementally added to the query pool. When all new query replicas are up and running, new client connections are load balanced across resources in the query pool. Existing client connections are not changed from the resource they are currently connected to.

After we finish scaling down, is the cube available for querying or does it need to be re-processed? (I assume, it's ready)

When scaling in, any existing client connections to a query pool resource that is being removed from the query pool are terminated. Clients can reconnect to a remaining query pool resource.

For more details, refer Azure Analysis Services scale-out.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

------------

Please don’t forget to Accept Answer and Up-Vote wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.