Re: OT: Business Objects

Thanks to all of you for your feedback. I asked the developer about BO, and I got it installed on my PC so now I can play with it and see for myself what is going on. There is a bit of a learning curve for me, but it really helps to give me some perspective on what is going on.

I do think the issue of the Universe definition is playing a key role in the few performance problems we have encountered. Now I have to figure out how to tackle that. =)

On 5/2/07, David Aldridge <david_at_david-aldridge.com> wrote:
>
> One of the strengths of business objects (IMHO) is that the SQL it
> generates is very predictable. The universe designers define the joins, the
> entities in the select statements etc., and having done so should be able to
> directly infer how reports against that universe will translate to SQL.
> Theoretically they are then able to draw inferences about universe
> performance.
>
> One issue that inexperienced developers can get into is defining functions
> against columns (eg. concatanating first and last names) and then allowing
> those objects to be used in conditions. That, of course, can be a recipe for
> plenty of lovely full table scans, so some coordination with the creation of
> function-based indexes can be beneficial, or maybe better education can lead
> them down the path of using more appropriate condition definitions.
>
>
> *Charles Schultz <sacrophyte_at_gmail.com>* wrote:
>
> I know Mark Strickland is using Business Objects, but not sure about who
> else. As a DBA, I often get requests to tune BO-generated queries, and so
> far they have all been fairly complex and ugly. Since I do not know much
> about BO, I do not know if the blame for suboptimal queries lies more with
> the product or with the fine folks using it; I am a little biased in
> thinking that the product is simply lacking, but I reserve the right to be
> wrong. =)
>
> So first, my obvious question: have you in the user community found other
> tools that can generate "better" sql, one that exercises a little more
> intelligence about the back-end database?
> And next, assuming that perhaps the developers merely need a little
> knowledge transfer about BO, what BO Forums would you suggest?
>
> Just for a little background, the developers are writing reports against a
> copy of an ERP datastore (SCT Banner in this case). I have been able to
> introduce them to analytics which is catching on slowly (BO does not
> inherently support analytics, does it?). The datastore is not a "warehouse"
> per se, in that the data has not gone through any ETL and there are no
> enhancing fact tables or star schemas outside what is provided for the OLTP
> application. Some extra indexes and a view or two, but that is it. 10gR2 for
> those who would ask. =) Not sure about the version of BO.
>
> TIA
>
> --
> Charles Schultz
>
>
>

-- 
Charles Schultz

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