How Can I Optimize Scalability?

When you plan how to build the application with the Crystal Reports SDK, one of your most important considerations is how to optimize the scalability of the application. Learning the SDK fundamentals that affect scalability helps you choose the best structure for your project.

You can scale your application at two different levels of scope:

• Across the Crystal product family.
• Within Crystal Reports for Visual Studio.

Scalability across the Crystal product family

Crystal Reports for Visual Studio uses an embedded report engine (a process for rendering reports that runs within the application memory space). This architecture limits report-processing capacity. But that limitation is not present in the other solutions from the Crystal product family. Therefore any discussion of scalability should begin with a comparison of more powerful solutions available in the Crystal product family.

Note

To learn about scalability across the Crystal product family, see Comparing Architectures Across Business Objects Reporting Solutions.

Scalability within Crystal Reports for Visual Studio

When using Crystal Reports for Visual Studio, considering the following best practices for improving performance can increase scalability:

• Reduce the size and complexity of reports where possible.
• Reduce the use of DataSets.
• Take advantage of report caching.
• Release the report from memory after use.
• Share processing across servers.

Implementation of these best practices is described in the following sections.

In this section:

• Use Smaller Reports

• Use Smaller Graphics

• Redesign Subreports to Reduce Demand

• Don't Use Fields that Block On-demand Processing

• Select the "No Printer" Option Under Print Setup

• Avoid DataSets for Simple Queries

• If You Use DataSets, Cache Them

• Cache Reports with "High Shareability"

• Use the Close() Method to free up the report

• Consider a Web Services Approach

• Set Up a Web Farm or Web Garden