There can be many reasons a particular TM1 application has performance issues. TM1 gets its power from the in-memory engine. This can also cause performance degradation as the application matures.  Maybe it is time for a TM1 application health check.  Here are some of the reasons why an application can slow down overtime:

1. An application may perform perfectly fine in the beginning of an implementation but as time goes on, the slowly changing dimensions add sparsity to the cubes and bog it down. As new elements are added, chances are there are more intersections with new values.  The time dimensions are notorious for creating this sparsity and creating unnecessary overhead. A good maintenance and archiving strategy can help alleviate this problem.
2. In our practice, we see many applications that have been poorly designed. An example of this are cubes with large numbers of dimensions. We understand that sometimes it is difficult to avoid but care should be taken in choosing the right amount of dimensions. Some dimensions can be combined into one. Attributes can be used in place of dimensions to keep the cube dense.
3. Many cubes are built extremely virtual in nature which means that the cube will utilize more memory and it will grow exponentially as new elements are added. One way this can happen is if cube rules are created to calculate elements instead of creating a consolidated element in a dimension – Using functions instead of attributes in a rule – Creating a rule where a TI process can do the job. An example of the later can be creating a rule to act upon an Actuals load that needs to be done once a month. You can process that calculation and store it in the cube instead of applying a rule to it and consuming memory unnecessarily.
4. Another quick fix for poorly performing cubes is reordering its dimensions. Even though it seems simple and obvious to many, it’s surprising to see the amount of implementations that have not checked the cube dimension order even once.

If you are frustrated with your TM1 application due to performance issues, contact Lodestar Solutions and give us the opportunity to help you get the most out of your investment.