Microsoft Conflict

[A.Karim]

Is there any conflict when Microsoft said in the document :

Creating a Managed Code PDS Extension for Project Server 2003.


http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d..._pj2003_ta/html/ODC_BuildPDSExtension_NET.asp

In section : (Accessing Project Server Data)

It says : "The Project Server 2003 database can be accessed directly using
ADO and an appropriate SQL Server connection string. This access method is
not recommended as a best practice for a number of reasons:"
and one of thier reasons were:
"Direct database access does not sufficiently abstract the data storage from
the client view. A client that relies on direct database access will not be
compatible with future versions of Project Server."

And in the same document in the Section:

Case Study: (A Stored Procedure Wrapper)

When they used a Stored Procedure reading from a View and that view is made
from Project Server database tables.
where reading from direct database tables means direct access

How this would keep the compatibility if a new release changed the database
structure.

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

I think you'll find that the stored procedure is used to create a PDS
extension and yes it may need changing in future versions of Project. Still
updating a view or Stored Procedure is not a major. I regularly read
directly from the SQL database, but I'm not worried about security, the
overhead of updating Views etc in future versions will be small and I am
very concerned about performance (hence the direct access).

I regularly create reports in Excel as Excel templates and have small VBA
macros in the template to read data directly from SQL Server. I use a udl
file to get the ADO connection string so one edit of the udl file redirects
all queries when changing databases or servers etc. Especially over slow
WAN's with high latency this produces very fast performance (6 pages of data
(at least 30 rows each) in 3-5 seconds with latency around 500mS)!

 

[A.Karim]

Dear Rod,
I mean, in building a Database Method, I should access directly the database
and read from its fields?
and there is no XML way to build Database Method?

My company would not go in a chance that microsoft may change the structure
of the database. then we loose what we did?
we want to follow what is recommanded by microsoft

 

[Rod Gill]

Then use PDS, but as that's based on SOAP it may well change as Microsoft
now recommends Web Services.