• well....technically the reporting DBs never get smoked. they just get set to "Loading"

    even while a DB is "loading" it's still usable. the client performance will just suffer as indexes are dropped and recreated, tables are locked, etc etc etc. the users will still get their data or they'll timeout.

    the connections to the DB are always created quickly and dropped quickly via the middle tier.

    nobody is ever allowed to connect directly.

    Gregory A Jackson MBA, CSM