KB484196: How to disable the Redis RDB Snapshotting feature in MicroStrategy versions prior to 2020

What is the Redis RDB Snapshotting feature?

The Redis RDB Snapshotting feature utilizes a snapshotting feature to persist the contents of the cache to disk to ensure that if Redis crashes, its state is able to be recovered on restart. It accomplishes this by forking the Redi server process that is holding all of the memory for the cache and then persisting that copy to disk. This clone of the process can spike memory usage on the environment temporarily past the resources available to the machine.
 

Why disable this feature? 

When Redis is unable to fork the process to initiate the snapshot, it fails the background save. By default, Redis is configured to go into read-only mode when the background save fails. This causes the W pool to begin throwing exceptions which causes the Platform Analytics Consumer to throw fatal exceptions, crashing the consumer process. Since it is easy to rebuild the cache from the Platform Analytics Warehouse database, the snapshotting feature can be disabled to avoid unnecessary usage of resources on the machines and prevent instability of the consumer workflow. Note: The Redis RDB Snapshotting feature is disabled in Strategy 2020.

How to disable the feature

For Platform Analytics installed on Linux

1. Stop platform-analytics-usher-lookup-producer:

   ./platform-analytics-usher-lookup-producer.sh stop 

   
   Stop platform-analytics-consumer:

    ./platform-analytics-consumer.sh stop

   
   Stop redis-server:
   

   ./redis-cli

   
   

   SHUTDOWN

   
   
2. Apply the following changes to the

   redis.conf 

   file: 
   
1. Comment out 3 lines under the

    ###SNAPSHOTTING### 

   header:
   

• #save 900 1

• #save 300 10

• #save 60 10000

2. Write 1 line:

   save ""

3. Start redis-server.
   Start platform-analytics-consumer:

   ./platform-analytics-consumer.sh start

   
   Start platform-analytics-usher-lookup-producer:

   ./platform-analytics-usher-lookup-producer.sh start

    
   

For Platform Analytics installed on Windows

1. Stop Strategy Platform Analytics In-Memory Cache and Strategy Platform Analytics Consumer from Windows Services.
2. Locate

   redis.windows.conf

    and 

   redis.windows-service.conf

    located in

   C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Strategy\Redis.

3. Make the following changes in

   redis.windows.conf 

   and

    redis.windows-service.conf

   :
   
1. Comment out 3 lines under the

    ###SNAPSHOTTING### 

   heading:
   

• #save 900 1

• #save 300 10

• #save 60 10000

2. Write 1 line:

    save ""

4. Restart Strategy Platform Analytics In-Memory Cache and Strategy Platform Analytics Consumer from Windows Services.

Third Party Software Installation WARNING
The third-party product(s) discussed in this technical note is manufactured by vendors independent of Strategy. Strategy makes no warranty, express, implied or otherwise, regarding this product, including its performance or reliability.