Chemstore!?!

[LC_addict]

Hi, i am relatively new to this forum and i thought i would introduce myself

I know this is very vague but i am just curious to everyones thoughts on 'Chemstore'.

I am currently trying to 'get into' using chemstore but had a few teething problems along the way. :/



I am also curious about usernames and password settings within chemstore and chemstation. Can an admin be set for all databases or do they have to be database specific?

[Garlarg]

I know this is very vague but i am just curious to everyones thoughts on 'Chemstore'.

IMHO: Forget it, hard to use and very outdated.

Can an admin be set for all databases or do they have to be database specific?

As much as I know it's database specific. I think it use an Oracle database.

[Consumer Products Guy]

I am also curious about usernames and password settings within chemstore and chemstation. Can an admin be set for all databases or do they have to be database specific?

I've been using ChemStore with ChemStation for about a decade, so our versions are about that age. I'm the administrator as well, the administrator is the administrator for the entire ChemStore (not just a specific database), and you can make additional Administrators too. Aside from the hassle of signing in, it doesn't affect us too much. Creating a new database every 650MB is awkward, we have a cheat sheet for this, and we copy the databases to CDs or DVDs. We always base the new database on the existing one, and the User names and passwords DO carry over. However, new studies need to be created, users assigned to those newly-created studies, and options like number of characters in a password, how long the password is good for, number of sign-in attempts, and time until password is required must be re-entered in or it will go to the defaults. Our HPLCs use up maybe two databases per year.

[Bluesman75]

I provide user support/training for our ChemStore setup and I am also a user, so I can't talk much about the Admin side of things.

For information ChemStore uses Access for local standalone databases and Oracle for networked databases. It was originally designed for Access and then migrated to Oracle and this is where some of the problems lie.

Basically ChemStore architecture is now outdated. With ChemStore both the raw data and the meta data is stored within the database, where as with more modern databases such as Empower, Chromeleon, Openlab the meta data is stored in the database and the raw data is stored on a secured area outside the database. The result is that the database fills up very quickly, especially if you are using DAD and mass spec detectors.

Personally I think ChemStore does a job, but there are far better options. The report editor is very restrictive, writing a custom calculation is overly complex. Transferring data to ChemStation as batches is cumbersome. If you add in the Security Pack to 21CFR11 compliance some of the functions of ChemStation do not work as well.

For routine testing work it will be fine, but if you start working with multiple wavelengths and signals or spectra it can be a lot work. But this was never a ChemStation strength.

To be fair we are not using the latest versions of ChemStation and ChemStore so some things may now be fixed.

[LC_labrat]

From an analyst point of view I am not a big fan of Chemstore. The amount of time it took to process an print data decreased significantly. We added high speed printers to the lab and Chemstore just couldn't keep up. It's been awhile but if I remember correctly it took only a few seconds before we made the switch to process/print a chromatgram to 30 seconds per chromatogram. So we went from 1 hour of process/printing in the morning after an 1-2 day run to 4 hours and since you can't process/print and run at the same time this was huge disadvantage. To be fair I do like the Agilent LC instruments, they can take a lot of abuse and work great, the software is inferior to other brands.

[LC_addict]

[quote="GarlargIMHO: Forget it, hard to use and very outdated.

Can an admin be set for all databases or do they have to be database specific?

As much as I know it's database specific. I think it use an Oracle database.[/quote]

Thanks for the help but as i know its going to be a requirement that we use it .

What other systems are in place that can provide similar tools and are in line with chemstore?

[varossf]

Chemstore is Oracle based and for 'back-up' you can archive the older data into archive data sets. In this way you keep the database lean too.

For replacement for ChemStore Agilent offers OpenLAB ECM as a storage backbone to which ChemStation B04.02 (current revision) connects. With the Intelligent Reporter, part of the OpenLAB portfolio, advanced reports can be made using the OpenLAB database. Performance is dramatically improved as OpenLAB does not ahve the drawbacks of the ChemStore system. Advantage is that you can keep your sequences, data and methods in the new ChemStation versions.

Contact your local Agilent representative. If you have no contact details I might be able to help you out.