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@xxxxxxxxx>* 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
