Reports and performance
Following the first deployment of an application, reports typically run efficiently and meet established Service-Level Agreements (SLAs). As the volume and complexity of application data grow, report processing can slow down. Reduced report performance can create memory, CPU, and network impacts that affect all users, not only the user generating the report.
To help you identify and resolve performance concerns, Pega Platform™ automatically generates performance alerts when the system exceeds thresholds. These alerts highlight potential issues in report design or data access patterns. For example, the PEGA0005 - Query time exceeds limit alert indicates that a report might be using an inefficient query or retrieving more data than necessary.
For more information, see Performance alerts.
Memory impact
Large report result sets can create a significant memory burden on the system. When a report runs, the system stores the results on a Clipboard Page for the user. If these pages grow too large or remain unmanaged, the application can encounter an out‑of‑memory error and shut down. Design reports to retrieve only the required data and use pagination to prevent unnecessary memory consumption.
Use the following best practices to reduce memory impact:
- Enable pagination to limit the amount of data retrieved at one time.
- Avoid loading large datasets onto the clipboard to prevent unnecessary memory consumption.
- Configure Data Pages with parameterized, optimized data sources to retrieve only the required data.
- Apply server-side filtering and aggregation to reduce the volume of raw data sent to the application.
CPU impact
Complex or inefficient SQL queries increase CPU usage on the database server. As CPU demand rises, the database can slow down, and all users across all nodes can experience degraded performance.
Pega Diagnostic Center (PDC) identifies patterns and alerts that relate to database performance. Database administrators can also use native monitoring tools to track CPU consumption and take corrective actions.
Use the following best practices to reduce CPU impact:
- Improve query performance by reviewing and interpreting query plan details available through PDC diagnostics.
- Use PDC guidance to identify and optimize inefficient queries.
- Apply established indexing and Data Model design practices to reduce CPU usage and support efficient data access.
Database administrators should continue to monitor database performance by using:
- PDC for Pega Platform-level diagnostics and alerting.
- Database-native monitoring tools for deeper insight into query processing, indexing, and server resource consumption.
Network impact
Transferring large report result sets over the network can reduce perceived performance for users, depending on bandwidth, network stability, and overall traffic. Retrieving large Data Sets from the database and placing them on the clipboard is not recommended. Instead, always apply pagination and limit the size of Data Sets to remain within recommended default thresholds.
Use the following best practices to reduce network impact:
- Limit the number of columns and rows returned by reports to reduce the amount of data transferred over the network.
- Use incremental loading and asynchronous UI patterns to avoid sending large Data Sets in a single request.
- Prefer summary reports that perform aggregations at the database layer, reducing the need to return raw, detailed data to the application.
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