You reserve a space
for intermediate calculations and temporary files in statements that
are in the body of the spdsserv.parm file. The workspace that you
configure in spdsserv.parm is shared by all SPD Server users.
Some users have data
needs that might be constrained by using the common intermediate calculation
and file space that is reserved for all users. Use the libnames.parm
file to create and reserve a workspace that is specifically associated
with a single domain and its approved users. Doing so can improve
both security and performance. As the size and complexity of a domain
increase, so do the benefits of organizing temporary and intermediate
tables into their own workspace, defined by WORKPATH=.
A workspace is an area
on disk that SPD Server software uses to store required files when
the available CPU memory cannot contain the entire set of calculations.
When sufficient memory is not available, some utility files are written
to disk. Workspaces are important to scalability. Tasks such as large
sorts, index creation, parallel group-by operations, and SQL joins
can require dedicated workspace to store temporary utility files.
You typically configure
a workspace as part of a large striped file system that spans as many
disks and I/O channels as possible. Workspace I/O can critically impact
the performance behavior of an SPD Server host.
Workspace on disk is
typically a RAID 0 configuration or a hardware-redundant RAID design.
RAID 0 configurations are risky because if the RAID 0 disk goes down,
the system is also affected, and any process that was running at the
time of failure is also likely to be affected.