Large Crystal Reports eating up CPU on server

Question

We have a server with several sql server databases. Clients log into the software on the server connecting to their own databases. Each database contains that company's Crystal Reports so that they can report on their own data in the database.
Unfortunately, some of the databases have a lot of information in them and when these companies run the report(s), it eats up the CPU of the server pretty much acting as a DoS for other users on the server.
Is it possible to somehow load in a report from a stream of data without needing to save the file to the hard-drive first?
Does the file on the hard-drive serve as a temporary storage location for the data being retrieved or is that held in memory until the ExportToStream method is called? If yes, that would explain why there is no Load method, that I can see, that allows a stream.
Is there a way to detect how big a report is getting as it's being built (a callback method or setting a property) and, if it exceeds a certain limit, to cancel the report?

Answer 1

There is a lot of info missing here, but I'll get to that later.
While your questions are very good, the short of it is; no. Essentially you are running into the OS limit rather than anything to do with Crystal Reports. Large reports may need that memory and a 32 bit OS will let us use up to 2 GIGs (a bit less actually, but close enough). If another report is needed that requires memory, you will run into issues such as crashes, out of memory exceptions, etc., etc. So, you have four options;
1) Limit the amount of data
2) Use 64 bit version of CR (more below)
3) Use one of the Enterprise products and schedule the reports for later viewing
4) Web farms, using sticky sessions
The only versions of CR that are 64 bit are 10.2 and 10.5 which bundle with .NET 2005 and .NET 2008 respectively. 64 bit app on 64 bit OS essentially does not have memory limitations.
Now, my questions;
1) What version of CR are you using?
2) How large is the data that is being processed?
3) How big is the report (pages, size) once it is done?
4) Are you using he latest runtime available for your version of CR?
5) Is your version of CR using the latest Service pack?
6) Is this a web or a windows app?
7) What typically is the OS?
8) What type of database connection are you using?
Ludek