Performance Considerations for External File Store

This topic lists the factors you must consider when you have External File Store to make sure you have optimal performance.

In this scenario where File Store is configured external to Tableau Server, you are storing the extracts on a network share. This means that Tableau Server will be accessing this data across the network. To ensure optimal performance, we recommend the following:

  • Use Enterprise grade storage system to to ensure reliability and high data access performance.
  • The storage system supports enough read IOPS:
    • Use Solid State Drives. If using spinning disks is the only option, use the fastest and as many as possible.
  • The network infrastructure supports the following:
    • At least 10 GB Ethernet to support high speed data transfers between Tableau Server and the storage system.
    • No more than 10 millisecond storage latency between Tableau Server and the storage system.

    The above recommendations are based on testing done by the Tableau team. Your requirements and performance may vary. We highly recommend that you create your own benchmarks to assess the performance and determine resource requirements.

    When creating benchmarks, consider overall performance of Tableau Server with workbook load times as one of the key metrics. This is especially relevant to this configuration since External File Store mostly impacts extract based workbooks.

    You can use Tabjolt(Link opens in a new window) to do your benchmarks.

Who can do this

Tableau Server Administrators monitor Tableau Server performance. However, there are network, hardware, and storage considerations that might either need access to make configuration changes to these resources. You may also choose to work with your network administrator to make any changes if you don't have access to these resources.

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