"Is there any way to limit the amount of disk space taken up by data stored on the BI Server for aggregations, calcuations, etc?"
The shor answer is "yes".
NQSConfig.ini (under C:\OracleBI\server\Config) has a section named [ CACHE ] for this purpose.
It reads something like this:
###########################################################
#
# Query Result Cache Section
#
###########################################################
[ CACHE ]
ENABLE = YES;
// A comma separated list of
// e.g. DATA_STORAGE_PATHS = "d:\OracleBIData\nQSCache" 500 MB;
DATA_STORAGE_PATHS = "C:\OracleBIData\cache" 500 MB;
MAX_ROWS_PER_CACHE_ENTRY = 100000; // 0 is unlimited size
MAX_CACHE_ENTRY_SIZE = 1 MB;
MAX_CACHE_ENTRIES = 1000;
POPULATE_AGGREGATE_ROLLUP_HITS = NO;
USE_ADVANCED_HIT_DETECTION = NO;
For example, this is how my cache folder looks like:
And to get more information on what these settings mean and do, you can see pages 229-240 of the "Oracle® Business Intelligence Server Administration Guide, Version 10.1.3.2, December 2006, (Part No B31770-01)" for a detailed explanation of what the different settings mean, and a brief exposition of the caching strategies.
Thanks to Krishnan Viswanathan from BI product management for providing the answer (yes... I am rendering credit unto others - wouldn't be nice on my part to steal and scoot -