Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL 4.45 is Released

Sage has released the first version, for the second time, of Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL. Version 4.45 is now available for new customers. This is not an upgrade from the 3.x version of SQL and is not considered to be the same product. This is a re-release of SQL as a new MAS 200 product. This version of MAS 200 uses the new Business Framework architecture. It has improved MAS 200 by using Microsoft SQL as the Database so that it will  provide stability and scalability. More can be seen about this release by going to http://www.SageMAS.com/MAS200SQL.

Some of the reasons you might want to go to this version of MAS 200 would be:

• More efficient processing of large datasets.

  There are many MAS 90 and MAS 200 systems with hundreds of thousands or millions of records in their files, particularly in the transaction history files. Although the records in those files are currently indexed in the ways that Sage believes will be the most popular, they are not indexed in every conceivable way that a sophisticated user might need them to be, when business intelligence reports are being designed. Reports whose data needs to be selected and sorted by “non-standard” criteria (isn’t it interesting how non-standard criteria is almost always the most valuable?) can take many hours to print, when the involved datafile(s) are substantial. Crystal reports, BIE and other business intelligence tools can take so long to print in this environment, that end-users are reluctant to use them. A SQL-based system will virtually eliminate this problem, making data much more accessible and report printing much more efficient. Although the “standard” MAS 200 reports will not see a huge improvement, many reports written outside MAS 200 (in Crystal Reports, for instance) will only take a small fraction of the time to print.

• Better integration with third-party SQL-based applications.

  Many of the most robust third-party applications are written with a SQL backend. MAS 200 ver. 4.45 will now be much more compatible with those applications than it is now. Some of those third party developers had written integrations to MAS 90 and MAS 200, but many had not because of the added difficulty in integrating to a non-SQL database. This will no longer be the case, and I believe that we will see a number of vendors jumping on the MAS 200 bandwagon with their products. With the new SQL database, third party SQL applications can use the Business Framework’s integration layer in order to perform updates into the MAS 200 database. They can now leverage the MAS business logic, instead of bypassing it, which preserves data integrity and eliminates synchronization issues.

• Availability of SQL data for queries and other manipulation.

  Database administrators will now have access to the full MAS200 database via SQL. They will be able to perform ad hoc SQL queries using many of their traditional SQL-based reporting and BI tools.

Thanks to Doug Deane at DSD for this list that he had posted on one of his blogs.

Only modules that have been updated to the Business Framework are available on this version of MAS 200 SQL. There is currently no migration from existing Sage  MAS 90 or 200 data to the new SQL version. The second half of 2011, Sage plans on releasing version 4.5 that will allow for migration. This version is also planned to allow for the sageCRM Integration or have a Sage Extended Enterprise Suite (EES) version available.