Bad Idea? - Creating views for reporting in separate database?

  • We have a database that we want to allow some AdHoc reporting against.

    However, we don't want to add a bunch of views to the database itself (vendor system).

    Is it an awful idea to create a new database and place all the views in that which link back to the vendor database?

    I am trying to think of any downsides here?  They will be on the same server, so it won't create additional network traffic. 
    The query optimizer will still "see" the underlying base tables and optimize the queries, right?

    Am I missing anything  I should consider?

  • Maxer - Friday, February 16, 2018 9:40 AM

    Am I missing anything  I should consider?

    My first concern would be the additional load on the database as a result of this reporting, including possible locking, which might affect performance of the vendor app.

    The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
    - Martin Rees
    The absence of consumable DDL, sample data and desired results is, however, evidence of the absence of my response
    - Phil Parkin

  • Oh yes, I should clarify:  Load is not a concern, that's all been addressed and resolved.  This is reporting off a read only replica.  (Well a HA Always on Availability Group)

  • As long as you're comfortable with having to maintain the cross database queries there's nothing terrible about the idea.  And it definitely provides a nice way to isolate reporting development and access from the actual application database.

  • ZZartin - Friday, February 16, 2018 10:17 AM

    As long as you're comfortable with having to maintain the cross database queries there's nothing terrible about the idea.  And it definitely provides a nice way to isolate reporting development and access from the actual application database.

    Cool thanks.

    Our database already has over 6,000 objects in it for views and...*shudder* I don't need to add anymore.  Doing a stand alone reporting database to contain the views will be much better. 🙂

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