The data cache for the Rank transformation is optimized to use variable length to store binary and string data types that pass through the Rank transformation. The optimization is enabled for record sizes up to 8 MB. If the record size is greater than 8 MB, variable length optimization is disabled.

When variable length is used to store data that passes through the Rank transformation in the data cache, the Rank transformation is optimized to use sorted input and a pass-through Sorter transformation is inserted before the Rank transformation in the run-time mapping. To view the Sorter transformation, view the optimized mapping or view the execution plan in the Blaze validation environment.

During data cache optimization, the data cache and the index cache for the Rank transformation are set to Auto. The sorter cache for the Sorter transformation is set to the same size as the data cache for the Rank transformation. To configure the sorter cache, you must configure the size of the data cache for the Rank transformation.