Under the Hood…Replacing Our Default Embedded Database

Every good software relies on a good database, which allows the software to run smoothly, to allow growth, to be robust, and of course to secure the consistency and availability of your data.

SysAiders that chose our Cloud offering don’t have to worry or manage the database or any other technical aspect related to hardware, installations, upgrades, etc. For SysAiders that have chosen to go with our On-Premise offering – we have always allowed you to select and manage your own database. But we also took care of those who want a simple and easy installation by having an embedded database that is automatically set up during the installation process, providing a worry-free environment that can be treated as a black box.

We constantly improve our product and the technology it is based on, both in aspects that are visible (like the new UI), as well as aspects going on under the hood.

This time around we decided to upgrade the embedded database to MS SQL Express – a top tier database that will bring you improved performance, allow you to grow, and have SysAid run on the newest technologies available out there.

New installations, starting from SysAid 9.1 released this October (2013), already include MS SQL Express as the embedded database. Our R&D is investing a lot of effort in creating an automatic migration from Derby (our previous embedded database) to the new database, so when you upgrade to one of our next releases in 2014 – this will be an automatic seamless process.

Just like we do with our colleagues who reach the age of retirement, we would like to thank the Derby database for the good years it provided us and wish it a happy retirement!

A few years ago, Derby itself replaced the previous database and became the default database for SysAid. The decision to retire the Derby database now assists us in providing something integral for our customers (what they’ve been asking for) – more On-Premise releases per year! We already provide several Cloud releases per year – almost every month, and only one or two On-Premise annual releases. By reducing the number of supported databases to 3 (MySQL, MS SQL, and Oracle) we are able to reduce and optimize our QA cycles allowing us to release more upgrades per year with features and bug fixes.

As I said in the beginning, we constantly improve our product and invest a lot even on the parts that you can’t see or don’t know about. We do know that some of you are very familiar with the technologies SysAid is built on and even have processes or technologies that are integrated with them, so this is a heads-up for you towards this important upgrade of our technology.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter, Google+, or Facebook where we are always listening.