| re: .NET Reporting against and Orcale Database
"Larry Dooley" <larrydooley@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Xns97BC63A0CF7Elarrydooley@216.196.97.142...[color=blue]
> Here's my issue. We've decided to replace a very critical (without it
> the business would lose lots of money) departmental reporting system
> with a built from scratch system based on .NET. The key component is a
> datagrid (it really turned the CIO's head).
>
> The issue is that the data source is Oracle. We've got a very complex
> reporting system that produces dynamic sql and sends it to oracle and
> takes back the result set and displays it. Each report has at least 3
> filters and some more than a dozen. Each filter can either be a single
> item, a list of 1 to N items or left blank. The idea is to push this
> into Oracle stored procedures and get back a refcursor. The
> filters/parameters effect not only the where clause, but can effect the
> select clause, the from clause (what tables are queried) and when either
> the from clause or select clause are effected the group by clause is
> effected. This is a complex database (not large by data wharehouse
> standards) with indexes and structure that are not friendly to
> reporting. Speed of the reports is a critical issue. It's something
> we've fought pretty sucessfully in the old system.
>
> We've also got to have a batch component. That is a number of reports
> need to run overnight and be available first thing in the morning. This
> can't be just a single job that runs a bunch of reports. We need each
> report to run separately. Oh and it needs to not start before certain
> jobs are finished on the Oracle database.
>
> Oh we've got a schedule of six months - nine months max and the clock is
> ticking.
>
> For the first issue. Has anyone done something similar. If so any key
> problems with this (forget buy crystal, cognos etc. It's not cost they
> are rounding error in our bottom line, but that decision is pretty set
> also forget a data wharehouse - no time)
>
> Second issue - does anyone know a good scheduler that will integrate
> well with a .NET solution.
>
> Thanks in advance.[/color]
Sounds like someone picked a technology for its "coolness" (eg someone
wanted to learn the technology for their resume)
If you know what the reports look like then the datawarehouse isn't that
difficult and would vastly simplify queries and improve performance. If
this is so business critical and worth a ton of money then doing it right
with known techniques and best industry practices (learn from others who
have gone before) is going to take less time and give you a better result
than chasing a BSO. (bright shiny object) Building it from scratch is 2
orders of magnitude of effort greater than using a packaged application.
(datawarehouses are designed for reporting, OLTP database schemas are not as
easy to do cojmplex reporting out of. Also reporting out of your OLTP
system may cause a performance hit there with the OLTP system. DW's usually
have a lot of indexes especially bitmapped indexes - something you won't
have in an OLTP system.(bitmapped indexes)
I would seriosly reconsider your approuch. Yes, you can have stored
procedures return refcursors. I am hoping you have someone familiar with
how to do that.
Jim
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