Re: Which reporting software?

"JA" <Cash_at_NOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:go5cmu80gbkmhl6ik18ucn3b3ic2prekuf_at_4ax.com...
> We always need ad hoc capabilites. We would also like some reports to
> run automatically based on dates, days of the week, or some trigger.
>
> I am not sure what you mean by "to stage data" though. Could you
> elaborate?

I believe that what Daniel is getting at is that allowing end-users to run ad-hoc queries against a transactional database via a graphical interface is the quickest way known to man to ruin the performance of said database. When performance falls through the floor it will of course be the DBA's fault and not in anyway down to the end user who requested the order item details for every order from the last 6 years correlated against the top40 position of David Bowie records in Albania ordered by the inside leg measurement of the wife of the Finance minister from the country of origin of the customers marketing director's executive saloon.

The most common way to avoid this is to move data to a seperate reporting instance (quite possibly in fact to a data warehouse) in a regular manner. This process is probably what is being referred to as 'staging data'. Many of the reporting products you refer to allow you to define the data flows and aggregate measures for this separate warehouse of historic data in a friendly manner. Others of course let you define it all yourself.

--
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
Audit Commission UK
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