Product Reviews
RAC For SQL 2000
RAC stands for Relational Application Companion, and it's an innovative
utility for SQL Server developers. It started life as a way to create
Access-like crosstab queries in SQL Server, and has now expanded to handle
a lot of extra functionality. Some of the things that RAC can do include:
- Crosstab queries
- Percentages in crosstabs
- Concatenate or split strings in flexible ways
- Interval partitioning in crosstabs
- Snaking column output
There's a lot more here. RAC is delivered as two pieces: a set of encrypted
stored procedures for your server, and a client with a GUI that helps
you fill in the parameters that the stored procedures expect. You can
use the GUI to work with the RAC stored procedures until you're getting
the output you expect, at which time you can capture the calls and use
them in your own client application.
Because RAC is implemented entirely in T-SQL, there's obviously nothing
here that you couldn't do yourself -- IF you're a T-SQL expert. If not,
and you need crosstab style reporting from SQL Server without moving to
Analysis Services, it's worth a look. The help file is a bit rocky, and
the developer GUI could stand some improvements. But you can download
a trial version from their web site to see whether the output is what
you need. And that, after all, is what you buy this sort of product for.
[This review originally appeared in
About the Author
Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, is a former MCP columnist and the author of numerous development books.