SEQUEL 10 Brings i/OS Reporting Enhancements

April 27, 2010 Alex Woodie

The SEQUEL Software subsidiary of Help/Systems unveiled a new release of the SEQUEL business intelligence software earlier this month. SEQUEL 10 will give System i customers faster connections to DB2/400, as well as the capability to create longer and more complex queries that execute against DB2/400 or other databases, among other enhancements.

SEQUEL is a multi-purpose i/OS utility that excels at executing queries and generating reports from DB2/400 as well as other relational databases, like SQL Server and MySQL. The software uses a special version of the SQL syntax that its owners say is more familiar to users and easier to use than the standard SQL syntax.

But in addition to business intelligence capabilities, the software, which Help/Systems obtained with its acquisition of Chicago-based Advanced Systems Concepts (ASC) nearly four years ago, can also be used as a programmer productivity tool, a form design and report output tool, a database conversion tool, or a Web enablement tool. BI just happens to be what it’s best at, so that’s how it’s marketed.

Expanding the size of SEQUEL views, or queries, from 5,000 to 20,000 characters brings users a couple of benefits with SEQUEL 10. First, it enables developers to create longer and more complex views. Big reports that perhaps needed to be broken up across multiple queries can now be executed in a single query.

Another benefit of the larger supported query size is the capability to create tailored queries for specific databases. This functionality goes hand in hand with another version 10 enhancement: the capability to automatically convert the SEQUEL SQL syntax to either standard SQL or database-specific SQL that executes against DB2/400, MySQL, SQL Server, or the Oracle database.

The vendor says it has added a new SYNTAX parameter that can be used with any SEQUEL command that works with SQL, such as CRTVIEW, DISPLAY, and DSNREPORT. This SYNTAX parameter automatically translates SEQUEL SQL to a database-specific SQL syntax at run time for faster execution.

For accessing local DB2/400 databases, SEQUEL converts the SEQUEL SQL to standard SQL. For accessing remote databases like MySQL or SQL Server, SEQUEL version 10 will convert the SEQUEL SQL to SQL that is specific for the server.

Since the SEQUEL software runs on the System i server, that is what most customers will use it with. SEQUEL version 10 brings System i performance improvements using the SQL Query Engine (SQE) utility that has been built into the i/OS operating system for the past several releases.

Another benefit in version 10 is the capability to use unqualified filenames for creating queries. The software will automatically translate the SEQUEL SQL to standard SQL, which should make it easier to write queries.

For more info, see www.sequel-software.com.