I tried "Multi-threading" and it did speed up the process by 5 minutes. However, I tried running it from my co-worker's machine that has 2GB of memory (vs mine that has 256KB) and it took the same amount of time. We have the same processor speed.
I'm also processing the reports locally, but I'll try putting it on a server to test. The report itself generates fast. About the email server, I'm not sure about that one.
How long does your 6000 reports take to complete? Remember, I have 200,000 - 300,000 emails to send. Thanks for describing your set up.
The Corporate Edition seems like the only way to go then. For that, I'll have to consult it with my boss.
My report is not embedding well, so I may not use this afterall.
Takes about 6 to 8 hours on a Saturday. We do it then because thats when the database server and the mail server are quietest.
Its more the processor capablitity of the PC than the memory. Don't forget, running 4 reports simultaneously will only run 4 times as fast if your processor can also work 4 times as fast. Otherwise you are simply sharing the same processor power accross 4 processes and so you will not see huge improvement. Each process will, in fact, take slightly longer. And, of course, there is the speed of your mail server.
How much time have you got to send 300000 emails? Hours, days? If I were doing that many and buying the Corporate, I think I might ask the CRD people to do some bespoke stuff for me and remove some of the email checks etc which slow down email.
I remember that they speeded up the "round robin" process for me (where the master tells which slave what report to run and when) when I asked, and gave me some pretty good tips on how everything hung together and worked.
One of the tips was that CRD was deliberately slowed down on the email delivery front so that it would discourage nasty people from using it as a spamming tool. When they were fairly certain that I was not a spammer, they sped up this part for me. (Unfortunately, as my email server is fairly slow at the best of times, it only made a small difference).
Anyways, good luck with it, and keep us posted as to how you get on.
I did a run test yesterday with 1210 emails and it completed in 3 hours. However, 200,000-300,000 emails would take forever.
We are trying to see what we can do, or maybe use another software that's targeted to sending emails.
I'm still having problems embedding the report because the HTML gets all jumbled up, so if I cannot solve that problem, then there would be no point in sending the emails.
