Bulk PDF Generation [thousands of unique customer statements every month]

[procedemis]

Has anybody figured out how to quickly/efficiently generate thousands of unique 'customer statements' every month [or something similar] using some sort of scalable method [besides looping on a single machine or two] - like an Azure Web Service that can scale up with demand?

Generating PDFs 'serially' takes forever and uses a lot of resources.  We use the exact same RPT file, but have to programmatically run it once for each customer in our database [changing the customer id in the parameter].  Is there a better way, I mean doing the looping works but pegs the CPU and takes forever.

 I would want to do it in Azure, but I don't think the Crystal dlls can be referenced from an Azure web service, can it?  Can referencing the runtime dlls and adding them to the bin folder of the web service - on a machine where the runtime installer has not been run, work?  Has anybody done that?  It would let me load balance and scale it up.

[LGCA]

Hi, procedemis.

I agree that a 3rd-party tool may be your best bet and would recommend InfoSol's InfoBurst tool: https://www.infosol.com/solutions/infoburst/

For Crystal Reports, it can do the job you described. If your current report returns your thousands of customers in a single refresh, InfoBurst can then split the output into their individual PDF files and can send each to a unique delivery target. It will do the work serially, but you can split the work into as many parallel threads as you like by creating and running distinct "bursts."

Cheers!
Luis

[ido_millet]

Hi Luis,

The two alternatives I mentioned are inexpensive. They range from $300 to $595 for a single-user license. And those licenses don't expire. 
 
Given that infoburst doesn't disclose the licensing cost, it might be significantly higher. 
Would you mind sharing with us the licensing cost range for that option?