User Guide > Batch vs On-Demand Mode

Batch mode is specifically designed to allow large amounts of data to be exported from TM1 to be loaded into an application or a server. Batch mode is executed as a scheduled process in the background with a predefined TM1 user account (usually an administrative account). This means that TM1 security for the data content must be handled by the application or destination server before distributing to multiple users.

How it works

TM1Connect uses a data agent that is usually installed as a service on the same server where TM1 resides (although it is not required) to periodically check TM1Connect for views that are scheduled for export. By having the TM1Connect Data Agent on the same server as TM1, allows for the highest possible performance when extracting large amounts of data, and so that there is no impact on network performance when processing files.

When TM1Connect starts up, it checks to see if there are any pending views to be extracted. If it encounters one, it will dynamically create a TI process which exports the data in an optimized format for speed. This file is loaded by the TM1Connect Data Agent and the dimensional information is added to the file as the output file is written.

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IMPORTANT: It is important to understand that a Turbo Integrator script is being used to extract the data from TM1 into a file, rather than a view created by TM1Connect. The reason for this is because oftentimes the entire cube is requested as an export and IBM Cognos TM1 has limitations on the maximum size of the view it can render in memory. A TI export does not have this limitation.

Because of this, you must carefully consider the options you select when defining the view (especially Suppress Consolidated Values). You must also be careful to remove consolidations from views when extracting large cubes. Failure to do so may result in no results, or too much data being returned.

The diagram below illustrates the overall flow of data for Batch Mode.

TM1Connect - Batch

Batch Mode (Export to File)

Batch Mode (Export to File)