Telkom has standardised on SQR for report writing across the enterprise, with more than 400 staff using it daily to produce a wide variety of reports.
SQR Server, licensed from Abraxas Software, draws data from TXOPS, the operational application developed for Telkom by BSW Telecoms. This in turn runs against Oracle on a Unix platform.
"Telkom staff in departments including transmission, network management, planning, construction and marketing, use SQR to obtain information for a wide variety of purposes," says Abraxas sales manager Herman Botes. "Staff installing network equipment use it to locate spare spectrum. Others might want to retrieve information about installed equipment; or where and what transmission services and capacity are installed between two towns. They might need to know what sort of microwave or transmission or radio connection exists between two points of the transmission network. TXOPS can show the configuration of the transmission systems in the network, depicting the various network equipment components along each of the routes in the configured network."
TXOPS runs non-stop, with users creating daily reports. SQR, says Botes, is specifically aimed at users who do not have SQL skills. "We have programmed SQR to produce user forms or templates which make it easy for users to specify the report they need," says Botes. The TXOPS-SQR combination replaced an ICL Cobol legacy system.
"BSW Telecoms has used SQR as the report writer on several bespoke systems has created for clients," says John Muller, BSW support account manager. "As a customised system integrator, we are constantly seeking utilities to enhance our applications.
"In turn, SQR translates the benefits of our applications to usable information for our clients. There are many report writers on the market but SQR is the only one that can do what we want it to: produce reports from a database with minimum specialised programming. This benefit has been one of the core differentiators in the TXOPS system we installed at Telkom."
"SQR Server is an industrial-strength engine for extracting, transforming and distributing data throughout the enterprise," says Botes. "It gives Telkom users the power, flexibility, ease of use and scalability they need to simplify information delivery and satisfy the immediate demands for mission critical business information."
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