Does Crystal Enterprise use Active Server Pages

[Austral]

Hi,

We are trying to decide which version of Crystal to install.

Is RAS part of Crystal Enterprise or is Crystal Enterprise just a more advanced version of RAS?

Does anyone know if Crystal Enterprise uses ASP.

I believe ASP is required with RDC but I'm not sure if it is required with RAS and/or Enterprise.

Thanks,

Austral

 

[SurfingGecko]

RAS is essentially ePortfolio lite. A throttled back version of CE meant as a teaser standalone which ships with certain Editions of CR9

Enterprise also makes use of .csp files which are basically scripted pages similar to ASP. You can still use ASP to create an RDC application, but if you want to customize Enterprise, ideally CSP would be the way to go.

What is it you are wanting to do? This might help with the suggestions

Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

Home of Crystal Ease

 

[Austral]

Hi SurfingGecko,

We have a corporate project where we want to create Crystal interactive real-time reports on the Web. We are trying to decide which version to use or if we need Enterprise. Our project manager would also like to create custom applications in PowerBuilder and incorporate Crystal Reports in the PB applications.

Our corporate standards don’t allow us to use ASP. If I’m reading the documentation correctly you need to use RDC and ASP to use CR with PowerBuilder and/or VB6. Is that correct?

Also if you use RAS with the Developer or Advanced Edition I believe you have to install RAS on the server so the only advantage to using RAS instead of Enterprise might be cost savings. Does that seem right?

If we want to develop custom applications using Crystal Reports without using ASP it seems like the only option would be to develop the application in Visual Studio using VB.NET or one of the other .NET languages and use RAS or Enterprise with CSP. I don't believe we can use RAS with PowerBuilder or VB6.

Finally, thank you for your help.

Austral

 

[SurfingGecko]

If ASP is out for you, then your choices are certainly limited.

Also, do not try to make RAS and Enterprise synonymous with one another. They are 2 different beasts.

RAS and the associated SDK will provide customers with a portal to build a simple, web-based "Designer". This web designer is then used as an add-on to the Crystal Enterprise system.

The "Designer" that developers can create with the RAS SDK gives end users the ability to modify existing reports in the Crystal Enterprise system. Basically providing added features that let users affect the design of basic reports using only a web browser.

By the sounds of it, Enterprise or similar (

http://www.kenhamady.com/bookmarks)

would likely be the easiest to implement.

Enterprise will provide you with the ability to publish reports to the Enterprise system which could then be access from anywhere by users via a Web Browser. These reports could be run on-demand or scheduled and both on-demand or previously run reports could be viewed.

Using RAS with Developer Edition is also quite throttled back and forces the need to move to Advanced. I think in Dev RAS, you have only 2 concurrent report requests and no caching.

.NET could certianly be an option, but I think at some point Enterprise will need to be employed.



Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

Home of Crystal Ease

 

[Austral]

SurfingGecko

Thanks again for all the advice.

Austral

 

[SteveRemington]

Austral,

If by "create Crystal interactive real-time reports on the Web" you mean distributing the reports to the big wide world make sure you choose the correct edition of CR9.0 because there specific licence limitations with respect to how many users your application delivers reports to.

CR 9.0 Advanced Edition now has the least number of restrictions because it includes a Crystal Reports broadcast licence. The only other consideration is the frequency with which users will run / view reports. The RAS that is bundled with CR 9.0 Advanced comes with the ability to handle 3 similtaneous processing threads. This means that up to 3 report actions (e.g. running a report, changing a page, opening a drill down etc) can occur simultaneously. The forth and subsequent actions will be queued and wait. If the load is to heavy users may experience an unacceptable wait time. If this is the case you can purchase additonal thread licences.


Regards,
Steve Remington
Wave Business Solutions
steve.remington@wavebusiness.com.au

 

[sushmitasharma]

Hi,

We have a similar situation. We would like to combine Powerbuilder 8.0 Enterprise edition application development with Crystal Reports on the Web.
We can use Crystal Reports Developer edition and embed it into Powerbuilder like Crystal with Visual Basic and Visual C++. However, our requirement is to create Web reports via Crystal and so we should probably use Crystal Enterprise. But which licence and which edition of Crystal?

Thanks!