Move Beyond "Normal" Reports
Have you ever beat your head against the wall trying to get yet another report built for users – or, if you’re using a report, trying to get just a little more information out of that report? Use the right tools to build the reports in the first place and you can empower your users to run their own what-if scenarios, drill down into data and a whole lot more. Check out Business Objects – they have some really solid tools you can use to provide a much more compelling reporting toolset for your applications. Get more info here.
"Good Enough"
Food for thought today…
I was reading through some different articles over the last few days – not necessarily on SQL Server or even "tech" in all cases, but they caught my attention because they were talking about "Good Enough" for most solutions to business problems. The articles were addressing the fact that many times, you can get caught up in perfecting a solution to a problem – so much so that you end up not delivering on the end product at all.
I’m not talking about doing a crummy job and calling it good enough. What I’m referring to is the fact that many times the easy solution that gets the job done is the one that you should closely consider using. I was talking with some different people about issues they were seeing and they were clearly getting caught up in the "ultimate" solution rather than just solving the problem at hand. Sure, the ultimate solution might be the absolute best approach, but the fact is, the incremental gains from between the ultimate solution and one step down from that were very small. The time savings, and time to deliver increase, as huge.
It was actually a really tough conversation to convince them that the "good enough" solution would do the trick, deliver the new solution more quickly and do what they needed.
Sometimes, it seems like we can get caught in this trap. Be wary of overlooking the straightforward solutions in favor of the most bleeding-edge or ultimate solution. If there are considerations that point to a more complex solution, sure – you need to take those into account. But if you can solve the reporting request with a quick report, consider just getting it done. If you can create a quick view and give access to Excel, while still keeping things locked down for that analysis, go for it.
Sometimes over-thinking and not quickly delivering is far more expensive than not covering the request 110%. Just a thought.
Webcast: SQL Server 2005 Tuning Tools and Approaches
We’ll look into the tools and techniques you have available to you in SQL Server 2005 for investigating performance issues, understanding what your server is doing and how you can use this information to tune your system. From Performance Monitor to watching queries that are executing we’ll show you some of the tools at your disposal for diagnosing server issues of performance and possible tuning targets.
> Register Now
> Live date: 6/11/2008
Featured White Paper(s)
ESG Lab Validation Report of the HP PolyServe Database Utility for SQL Server
ESG Lab, the testing facility of industry analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group, reports its comprehensive testing of HP’s s… (read more)
The Keys to Recoverability, from ESG
ESG Analyst, Lauren Whitehouse, discusses Double-Take Software’s concept of “recoverability” – which involves layers of prote… (read more)