When a Report is executed, it goes through the cycle we described in Chapter 1, Architecture - Installing and Configuring MicroStrategy, (Refer to Intelligent Server Engines): SQL Generation-Query Execution-Results format and Crosstab. However, for both complex Reports and very large Result sets, this process could take time and resources each time the Report is executed. For scenarios where ad hoc reporting is not needed, the result set from a previously executed Report can be stored in what MicroStrategy calls a cache. When a user executes a Report, a cache is created within a file and the Intelligence Server loads the result set into its memory.  Report caching can be enabled either at the Project level or at the Report level.

There are two other objects that generate caches too: Intelligent Cubes and Documents.

Intelligent Cube caches are a more optimal form of regular Report caches. Intelligent Cubes can basically serve as a cache for different Reports. For example, let's imagine there is a prompted Report that asks the user for a Region. If you want to create a Report cache, you will need more than one cached result set, such as one for each Region (this is why the Report cache is usually not enabled for prompted/ad hoc reports). On the other hand, with an Intelligent Cube, you could just cache the result set for all Regions and then associate a prompted Region Report to the Cube.

Finally, Document caches can be enabled on different formats such as Excel, HTML, PDF, and XML. The first three formats are used for exporting purposes, while the XML is used in MicroStrategy web visualization modes (Express Mode and Interactive).

The following sections describe which MicroStrategy Configuration objects are used to refresh these caches.