Crystal Reports Solutions: Network Overloads

What can you do, if you are experiencing network overloads due to demands being placed for Crystal Reports delivery? It seems like every morning e-mail and other systems slow to a crawl because everyone is getting their reports when they come in.

How can you solve this problem? There are three avenues you can pursue, and we'll look at each of them in this article:

• Upgrade the network

• Offload some traffic to a parallel wireless network

• Use software to redistribute the traffic away from "rush hour"

Upgrading the network

Here's a scenario that may be familiar to you. It was only a few years ago when your facilities group installed a state of the art 100MB Ethernet system, and even had it tested and certified to 80MB (most networks operate well below their rated capacity, due to cabling installation errors and connection issues). That was a major expense.

You were recently at a staff meeting, were the facilities manager proposed a new 10GB Ethernet system. This would, of course, provide ten times the bandwidth--thereby solving your network overload. There's a "small" catch. The pricetag is enormous, and the business interruption isn't exactly what the company needs right now.

This isn't a matter of simply running a few new cables. You're talking about all new backbones, cable drops, termination devices, routers, hubs, and more. Plus, the National Electrical Code requires removing all of the old system--you can't abandon any cables in place.

Offloading some of the load onto a parallel wireless system.

Dividing a utility into parallel systems is almost never a good idea. Doing so produces these disadvantages:

• Parallel costs of equipment, installation, maintenance, and support

• Increased complexity and multiple steps for users

• Decreased productivity

• Increased points of failure

Now, if you were developing a parallel system as a backup, that's an entirely different story. But dividing your main system into a combination of parallel systems simply exchanges one set of problems for another.

Why not go 100% wireless? That may be the right solution, assuming you can afford all of the equipment upgrades, overcome the blindspots, resolve RFI problems, and deal with the typical building structure that is not wireless-friendly.

Software solution

This is what we recommend. This solution takes the form of an inexpensive Crystal Reports Scheduler. A Crystal Reports Scheduler is a tool that automates report distribution. You can "set it and forget it." Using manual methods, you must interact with the reporting system for you to actually distribute the reports. But a Crystal Reports Scheduler interacts with the reporting system for you. That provides many benefits.

Now, here's the really neat part. You solve not just the network overload problem, but you will also prevent any of the following problems--or solve them, if you already have them:

• Data crashes on networks.

• Slow report performance.

• Manual report distribution, which is costly.

• Labor-intensive distribution, due to manual methods.

• Being tied to a daily grind mandated by user report schedule demands

• Late report deliveries, missed report deliveries, and duplicate report deliveries.

• Interruptions due to report delivery activities.

• Interruptions of report deliveries due to emergencies, sickness, conferences, meetings, or other priorities.

• Inability to use the same report multiple times with different parameters and/or destinations.

• Inability to upgrade the network to handle the increased report traffic.

When you use a Crystal Reports Scheduler, you can:

• Schedule reports for automated delivery during non-peak hours. This alone justifies the cost of a Crystal Reports Scheduler several times over. What do you think it would cost you to upgrade your network? Going from 100MB Ethernet to 10GB Ethernet means all new cables (and LAN testing)--and that alone is thousands of dollars you won't need to pay if you use a Crystal Reports Scheduler.
   

• Break the ankle chain that requires real-time presence during report distribution. For example, if you want to distribute reports an hour before normal starting time to reduce peak loading on the network, a Crystal Reports Scheduler allows you to do that without your needing to also be there an hour before normal starting time.
   

• Ensure on-time deliveries of your Crystal Reports to the right people. No more late deliveries, no more missed deliveries, and no more accidental deliveries to the wrong people or to the same people 2 or 3 times.
   

• Eliminate interruptions in your work flow, due to needing to deliver reports at a set time.
   

• Eliminate interruptions in your report deliveries, due to emergencies, sickness, conferences, meetings, or other priorities.
   

• Use the same report multiple times with different parameters and/or destinations. This eliminates several potential problems, right at the source. Plus, it saves you time.

At this point, you are probably "sold" on the need for a Crystal Reports Scheduler. But now you are faced with the task of evaluating the various Crystal Reports Schedulers on the market and deciding which one to buy.

Of course, we are going to recommend one of our own Crystal Reports Schedulers and not one sold by our competitors. But there is more behind that recommendation than simply wanting to be your source for a Crystal Reports Scheduler. We also have a track record of continual development, giving you a full-featured product to fill your needs efficiently.

So, what are the choices? First of all, if you are running Crystal Enterprise you already have a Crystal Reports Scheduler built in. This approach gives you a Web-based reports distribution.

But if you are not running Crystal Enterprise, you need a strong Windows-based Crystal Reports Scheduler. Two such products are:

• cViewSERVER. This is a scheduler that runs as a Windows service, which means you don't have to be logged in for it to run. It's built on the .NET platform, and that gives it major performance advantages. But you must run Crystal Reports 9.0 or higher to be able to use it.
   

• cViewMANAGER. This is our original scheduler. It runs as a Windows application, and it is compatible with earlier (pre-9.0) versions of Crystal Reports. Like cViewSERVER, it has a high level of functionality with major benefits.

Isn't it about time you started saving your company money with a Crystal Reports Scheduler? Insist on quality--insist on cViewSERVER or cViewMANAGER.

This article is copyrighted by Crystalkeen, Mindconnection, and Chelsea Technologies Ltd. It may be freely copied and distributed as long as the original copyright is displayed and no modifications are made to this material. Extracts are permitted. The names Crystal Reports and Seagate Info are trademarks owned by Business Objects.