Tell me if I am wrong, but cant you just cfhttp with CF to the simple SQL reports and dump em back to the user? Maybe you could use your nice CF login / security and still make use of SQL reporting. I have tinkered with SQL2005 reporting, and I can tell you it looks totally awesome for simple reports with structured repeating regions, but more complex logic would probably be better embedded in CF, imho.
Chris -----Original Message----- From: Brad Wood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 3:01 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: reports reports reports Teddy, thanks for the insight. I will try to address a couple of the questions you posed... I guess the main reason why I am suggesting CF would be the logical solutions for our reporting is simply because all of our other interfaces we have right now are CF. All operations functionality (including the current reporting module) is part of a "CF front-end / MS SQL back-end" web app. Our current set of programmers are CF programmers, our front-end expertise is CF, and our current servers are Linux (I.E. .Net is limited in my mind since it is married to its platform). All logins, authentication, tracking, and Contact manager data (which the reports link directly to) are all part of the CF web app. So in my mind, it just seems logical that to change technologies would be a shift in gears for our company. It would also cause a rift in our technologies where integrating links directly to order details and contact manager would be across systems. Also, we would have to re-build our security model and a new authentication system for a second web app written in a different language. It just sounds like so much work! :) You mention that there is network overhead for CF to connect to the SQL servers to run the report. That makes perfect sense, but wouldn't you have just as much overhead for a SQL reporting server to also connect to the database? Maybe I don't understand how the SQL server connects to the database, but it is still a separate server connecting across the network to your database to run a select or a prepared statement, right? I am especially interested in hearing from anyone who has used any of the Flex charting stuff. I am curious as to how hard it is to create them. Job security is not a concern here. I'm just trying to keep my company from chasing after every pretty "technology" butterfly it sees and ending up with 15 different technologies which are all poorly integrated or thought through. (But, yes, I may be a little selfish in wanting things to stay in CF) :) Some of my main concerns with our reporting mechanism are having the flexibility we currently have with the HTML/CF interface we are using-- especially if we move to a Flex solution. All of our reports have dynamic criteria the user can select as they run the report. The interface needs to be able to create form fields of every type, exact validation against those fields, and then capture their values and plug them in to the query that is run to populate the report. I don't know if that can be does easily with action script even. Anyway, enough rambling. I KNOW there are some people out there with opinions/experience in this area. Nobody would shut up about the cfif recordcount, and now I can't get anyone to talk! lol ~Brad -----Original Message----- From: Teddy Payne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 12:47 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: reports reports reports Brad, The question here is why do you feel that ColdFusion needs to do the reporting? Is the data set ideal for CF? In the server farm that I work with, we have dozens upon dozens of database and multiple data warehouses. We use the report builder for SQL Server 2000 and it is quick and gets the reports to those who need it. The SQL Server reports also have an option to deploy the calculated report to an HTML page, which is a static result of the finished compilation. Now, don't get me wrong here. I have used CF for 8 years and use it for the majority of my solutions, but it is not meant to report everything. You have to think about CF connecting to the servers you want to run reports on as additional network overhead. You can create static reports in CF as well and can offer lots of pretty graphing options. You can go as far as building a Flex Charting solution as well for even better results. I would recommend Flex Charts over CF Reports for more options and flexibility. Now, who is going to build these reports? Are they asking you to create the reports or the DBAs? Is job security a concern? Just be objective here and figure out what is the best option instead of asking if CF should get the oppurtunity. From what I have seen on the calculations for some of the larger reports, the SQL report builder is quicker on the recompilation of a report. CF is quicker when rendering aggregated data sets that do not need to recompile the data sets. Teddy On 10/3/06, Brad Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm looking for opinions advice here. My DBA is going nuts over the SQL > Server 2005 reporting services. He wants to replace our current custom > built (CF) reporting mechanism with it. I think ColdFusion report > builder would be a better option since we are, after all, a ColdFusion > shop, not .NET. And not to mention all of our production servers run > Linux. > > > > Nice features our company seems to want often in reports is the ability > to sort and filter data, add/remove/re-arrange columns from the report. > Keep stats on when the report was last run, by whom, and how long it > took. Change the server the report runs off of on the fly. > > > > The problem I have is that I know nothing about the SQL Server 2005 > reporting service, OR the ColdFusion report builder other than they are > all free. > > A couple of the guys on the database team are already playing around > with the SQL version and making a collection of cool reports to use in > their argument for why we should use it. Before all the pointy-haired > bosses get sold on that I want to make sure ColdFusion report builder > gets its fair say. > > > > Can anyone with experience with one or the other comment on the > following: > > > > Which one is faster? > > Which one is better? > > Which one has more features when it comes to manipulating the data after > running the report? > > Which one will get my morning coffee and bagel for me? > > Which one has the easiest learning curve? > > > > I anxiously await advice. > > > > Thanks! > > > > ~Brad > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:255239 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
