The same core database technology found in prior releases powers FairCom Database Engine. With an emphasis on ease of use and unfettered development, the FairCom Database Engine is the same core engine you've come to depend and rely upon for many years in your existing and successful applications.
There are many ways to move forward with FairCom technology from existing applications and previous versions of FairCom DB. See which pathway best fits your situation and see how easy it is to begin using FairCom DB. As FairCom database technology is extremely flexible and has been deployed in a huge number of diverse applications, there may be subtle issues unique to any upgrade.
Please don't hesitate to contact your nearest FairCom office for assistance. Our experienced engineering team is always willing to assist in any way possible.
Are you an existing FairCom DB developer?
Link your existing application to the FairCom multithreaded library, mtclient.lib, included in the /lib directory of your installation.
Copy or move your existing data and index files to the working directory of the FairCom server, which in V12 has changed from /bin/ace/isam or /bin/ace/sql to <faircom>/server. You could also consider the LOCAL_DIRECTORY configuration keyword to point to your existing data location. Be aware that you will need to remove existing transaction log files as previous versions of these files are incompatible with newer versions. Follow the steps in this section to ensure a clean start with FairCom DB.
Continue using your existing application!
Are you an existing c-tree Plus Standalone developer?
FairCom DB offers a client-server only version. In many cases, you can easily make your existing data work with the FairCom server and gain all of the benefits of FairCom technology. Dynamic backups, advanced caching, and SNAPSHOT statistics monitoring are just a few of the great features available with the FairCom server engine. To begin using this technology in your application follow these simple steps:
Link your existing application to the multithreaded library, mtclient.lib.
Copy or move your existing data and index files to the working directory of FairCom DB. You could also consider the LOCAL_DIRECTORY configuration keyword to point to your existing data location. Be aware that you will need to remove existing transaction log files as previous versions of these files are incompatible with FairCom DB. Follow the steps in this section to ensure a clean start.
Rebuild indexes to take advantage of larger page sizes. Standalone models default to a 2048 byte index node size, while FairCom Servers since V8.14 default to 8192 bytes. Increasing this allows more keys per node, as well as larger keys, that frequently arise when creating complex indexes via SQL.
Switch your initialization to InitISAMXtd() and add the client user name and password to access the server. Use the Xtd() Function API calls that allow the user credentials and server name to be specified. You can include these in your standalone builds, as they are simply ignored in those models.
Consider multithreading your application for enhanced scalability and performance.
Access the power of the FairCom DB in your application immediately.
Do you wish to use existing FairCom data with FairCom SQL?
Ensure your data is compatible with FairCom DB SQL. FairCom DB SQL requires proper DODA and IFIL structures to be present. Use the FairCom DB Information utility, ctinfo, included with the product, to check for the presence of these required resources.
Use the SQL Import utility, ctsqlimp, to import your existing data and indexes to FairCom DB SQL. The following topic, Let Your Existing ISAM Applications Co-Exist with SQL, provides the steps needed for this data access addition.
Begin using any FairCom DB SQL interface technology with your existing FairCom DB data!
