Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Session Timeout During Execution – SSRS Reports

This is a common issue in reports, if you are working on generating reports with several hundred thousand records and complex joins. The general solution for this problem would be reducing the time that report takes to run by simplifying the report or improving performance of stored procedures if used. But this is not always possible often with our rigid requirements. For these situations following two solutions can be helpful;
  • Run the report offline – This can be done by scheduling report to run on free hours like night. Then the users only see this snapshot of the data. But this approach may not be enough flexible, as we cannot directly change parameters for each run.
  • Deliver the reports via a subscription – Here user has to come to the browser and subscribe to the report with parameters if needed. Then can leave the page without waiting until the report is generated. Report will be delivered to the person via email or a file share.
To brief the Subscription method, it is a request to deliver a report at a specific time or in response to an event rather than running a report on demand. There are two types of Subscriptions supported by SQL Server Reporting Services.

Standard Subscriptions – Usually created and managed by individual users and they consist of static values that cannot be varied during subscription processing.

Data-Driven Subscriptions – This is a dynamic subscription. Here the presentation, delivery, and parameter values are retrieved at run time from a data source. Data-driven subscriptions are a good choice if you want to vary report output for each recipient.

A subscription consists of several parts, which we should specify. They include the report that should run, report delivery method, the rendering format, conditions for processing the subscription, and parameters used when running the report.

For more information visit official msdn site at following locations,
How to Subscribe to a Report (Report Manager)
How to Schedule a Report Snapshot (Report Manager)

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Virtual Reality and Migration to Virtual Space

Abstract: Virtual Reality is an artificial environment created by computers in which people can immerse themselves and get the sense of a real environment. It is a way for humans to visualize, manipulate and interact with computers and extremely complex data. This technology allows a user to interact with a computer simulated environment, which can be real or imagined one. Virtual Reality environments are varying from visual experiences to simulations with sensory information and getting popular in several areas like trainings in health care, treatments for anxiety disorders, learning environments, business and marketing, entertainment and scientific visualization. This paper briefs the application of Virtual Reality in some of above areas, technologies used, problems caused, and the quality of the interaction.

This is the abstract of the literature survey conducted by me as my final year independent study in the University. If anyone interested in this area here is the link for full document.
It should be noted that, this is not based on any research conducted by me, but a literature survey of studying research papers. I have maintained the complete list of referred papers in the document.