Data Dynamics Reports for Medium Trust ASP.NET Reporting

For web servers running multiple ASP.NET applications on the same server, you can use ASP.NET's code access security and the medium trust level to provide application isolation. See this MSDN article for more information on ASP.NET medium trust configuration.

The problem comes when the applications and components you are using do not support medium trust and therefore the hosting service has to be given full access.

Data Dynamics Reports is a completely re-architected version of the Award-winning ActiveReports and is a product that really surprises people with its ease of report design, ease of use, sheer breadth and depth of its features, including direct support for dashboards, advanced data visualization, use of Microsoft's Report Definition Language as its reporting format with powerful PDF and Excel transformations, image exports, among other things.

Data Dynamics Reports supports medium trust reporting from the ground up. There are a few minor exceptions though, primarily because of the underlying system restrictions. They are:

1. End user custom code embedded in the report designer is not supported for obvious security reasons. Moreover, the underlying APIs requires full trust permissions.

2. The FormattedText Report Item will not work because it uses the underlying .NET XML classes that expect full trust permissions.

3. The PDF rendering will work fine with the default PDF fonts defined in the PDF specs, but not with external fonts because the underlying system APIs need read only registry and file permissions to query the Windows registry for installed fonts.

4. Creating TIFF images will not work because the underlying system APIs require full permissions.

Other than these high-end niche features, you should feel free to go ahead and use Data Dynamics Reports for your next medium trust ASP.NET reporting applications!

Even better, IF you really wanted these features to work for your end users, contact our support team for a few special security policy files that will allow you to use even these features in a less than "full trust" environment. Technically, these policy files grant very specific permissions to certain product assemblies within the medium trust environment. However, this is far better than having to grant "full trust" to everything, and will still meet your needs for a restrictive security environment.

ActiveReports 6 Launch Recap!

It has been about four weeks since the wait ended and ActiveReports 6 was launched by GrapeCity. The official press release can be read here.

"ActiveReports is just one example of how easy it is for our customers and partners to use Microsoft Visual Studio and the .NET Framework to build powerful reporting and business intelligence solutions," said Doug Seven, senior product manager, Visual Studio Team System, Microsoft. "Microsoft is pleased to be working with partners like GrapeCity to deliver world-class developer tools to our customers."

The customer response to the launch has been tremendous thanks to not only the best ActiveReports version so far, but also due to the significant improvements and easy purchase options on the web site. We have made a sincere attempt to not only provide more information about all our reporting and BI products for casual visitors but easy access to more in-depth technical information for those interested in digging deep.

The ActiveReports 6 Features Page provides an excellent list of features with screenshots and in-depth links into the product documentation.

If you just wanted to know what's new, there is a complete description of all that is new in the Standard Edition as well as in the Professional Edition.

Based on customer polls, the most popular features in ActiveReports 6 are undoubtedly the Flash Report Viewer, the PDF Digital signatures and cool new Report Designer features.

For the first time, we created brand new Demos and Webcasts and added the How-tos, Walkthroughs from the extensive product documentation.

Of-course, this has to be followed up by making it possible for ActiveReports customers to easily buy new licenses or instantly upgrade to the latest version of their favourite .NET reporting product, regardless of which version they have. We have tried to provide easy upgrade options via the Instant Upgrades Page.

Obviously, the web site is still work in progress but we are excited for the future as the brand new GrapeCity Developer Tools Web site gets ready to launch in the coming months!