[thelist] Query Execution Time Excel vs. SRS/SQL Server

Ken Schaefer Ken at adOpenStatic.com
Fri Apr 28 21:42:31 CDT 2006


: -----Original Message-----
: From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org [mailto:thelist-
: bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Lee kowalkowski
: Subject: Re: [thelist] Query Execution Time Excel vs. SRS/SQL Server
: 
: On 28/04/06, Rob Smith <rob.smith at lexjet.com> wrote:
: > Is there a reason why Excel can churn out a pretty complex query in a
: > matter of seconds, when the same query run in SRS or SQL Server 2005
: > would take several minutes?
: 
: In addition to Richards reasons, Excel is likely to hold all your data
: in memory compared to a typical database doing disk access.  There are
: many in-memory database products around.  I would have thought a DB
: like SQL Server would have an in-memory option.

SQL Server will use as much spare memory as your system has to hold it's data
in RAM.

I think Richard's probably on the right track: Excel is a financial/modelling
tool that specialises in certain types of operations (there are statistical
functions in excel that would be very difficult to replicate in SQL). SQL
Server is a RDBMS, and they tend to specialise in other things (set-based
operations, data access/modification). 

But, we have no idea what Rob's actually trying to do (surprise), so it's a
bit hard to speak beyond those generalities.

Cheers
Ken



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