data load FTP or Database pro cons

[ANLYNG]

Hi ,

We have a lot of tables and can choose to load them directly from the different source databases or exportet data to FTPs site. Sometimes it is small dataset but also 6 mio records.

What do you recommend to use if possible? pro and cons? eg. in relation to performance and security and other??

Thanks in advance.

[Kurt_Bremser]

From experience, unloading into a flatfile and reading that poses the least problems and has several advantages:

- the unload can be performed in the database under control of the DB when load is low, making DB admins happy

- no SAS license for ACCESS to RDBMS is needed

- no DB client needs to be installed and maintained on the SAS server

For optimum performance, I would do the unload (inlcuding storing the flatfile) on the DB server, and retrieve the file with filename FTP from there; this necessitates only one network transfer, which is usually the bottleneck. Using a third (FTP) host moves the data over the network twice.