Pervasive PSQL v9 Product Information
| First Customer Ship: | March 1, 2005 | | End of General Availability: | July 1, 2009 | | End of Support: | January 1, 2010 |
Pervasive PSQL v9 builds on the success of the Pervasive.SQL product family by providing some great new features over PSQL V8. Here's a short list of improvements:
- Larger Database Support: The new V9 and v9.5 data file formats offers three improvements, specifically the ability to use 8K page sizes (16K on v9.5) for better performance, the ability to have a single database file get up to 128GB (256GB for 9.5), and the ability to store all data in a single extent (without seeing the ^01, ^02, etc. file extensions). This last feature will make system maintenance of large environments much easier!
- Improved Linux Support: The database is now much faster on Linux systems!
- Improved SQL Performance and Syntax: Pervasive Software has again reworked the SQL engine to provide substantial improvements in performance, as well as adding numerous features and functionality common to those "other" SQL engine environments. This provides developers with existing SQL database experience with a much lower learning curve .
- New DBA Features: The new capabilities in System Stored Procedures, User Defined Functions, and the ALTER syntax changes are all designed to make your DBA life easier.
Add the ability to make some engine changes on the fly, without a restart, as well as some new command-line tools, and you'll see great time savings!
- A New Control Center : The new Control Center is Java-based and provides much of the same functionality of the previous PCC. However, functionality is vastly improved in most areas, with many new features to play with!
- Improved COBOL Support: With the addition of the new OCCURS and REDEFINES support, you can access data structures defined with these constructs natively from the SQL engine.
- Drive Letter Redirection: This "hidden" feature of PSQLv9 can make your old Btrieve-based system much more secure than it is today. Ask us how!
- New Developer Features: In addition to the new developer-level features in the SQL engine, the Rename and Delete File API calls are now exposed, allowing you to do more from within the Btrieve API.
Some of the application vendors we work with have already embraced the Pervasive PSQL v9 update and are fully supporting this release already! Others are still in the evaluation phase. If you are not sure, check our Application Support pages or contact your application vendor directly.
What are the downsides to upgrading? Well, there are a few minor issues...
- Price: This is a paid upgrade. Pervasive is getting on track for a paid release every two years. This gives developers and end-users alike a way to forecast new upgrades and product purchases, as well as a way to budget their database expenditures.
- Testing: Like most prior versions, it will probably takes some database developers some effort to get their application tested and approved on Pervasive PSQL v9. If your developer has not yet announced support for this engine, we recommend that you specifically ask them about it. Otherwise, you may need to do some limited testing. Because of the high level of backward compatibility that Pervasive still retains, we expect no problems with Btrieve-level applications at all!
Pricing can be found on our Pervasive PSQL v9 price list, or you can BUY IT NOW from our on-line store.
If you want to try it out before you buy it (and who doesn't?), you can get a downloadable evaluation license to play with the new product for
30 days from Pervasive's Web Site.
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[+] Pervasive PSQL v9 End of Life Announcement...
The following information was released by Pervasive on December 5, 2008:
Pervasive PSQL v9 begins transition support January 1, 2009
End of general availability beginning July 1, 2009
End of Support beginning January 1, 2010
Pervasive PSQL v9 was released in March of 2005 and has had a terrific run, but now has been mostly replaced in the market by PSQL v10. The only change in status with the move to Transition Support is that there are no longer complimentary support tickets provided with each product. This is part of a longer term plan to stop shipping Pervasive PSQL v9 six months after beginning Transition Support; Pervasive PSQL v9 will no longer be generally available beginning July 1, 2009. The end of general availability means:
1) Pervasive PSQL v9 will not be available for sale or on our published price lists,
2) Phone and electronic support are chargeable for any issue related with Pervasive PSQL v9.
Important Note to Pervasive PSQL NetWare Customers: Because Pervasive PSQL v9 is the last platform on which PSQL supports NetWare, Pervasive will continue to ship and support Pervasive PSQL v9 on NetWare as a generally available product for the foreseeable future.
In short, if you need PSQLv9 because you have a 16-bit application that cannot run on PSQLv10, or because your application environment is not supported on PSQLv10 yet, then you'll do best to budget in your PSQLv9 purchase before that time.
[+] Pervasive PSQL v9.70 (Service Pack 3)...
Pervasive Software has released a new update to their database, known as Service Pack 3 and its subsequent updates.
In fact, there was a v9.70 release, followed shortly by v9.71 Update 1, then v9.71 Update 2. In short, you may wish to check back periodically to see if they release another new update!
This update series provides additional bug fixes and improvements to the PSQLv9.50 database engine and is strongly recommended for ALL sites running Pervasive PSQL v9.5.
This Service Pack requires a pre-existing installation of the Service Pack 2 (v9.50) software or higher, and it will install onto ANY older release. This means that if you already have v9.71 update 1, then you can apply Update 2 right over the top of it.
Service Pack 3 and its updates also supercede all released copies of v9.52, which have since been removed from Pervasive's web site.
Download the PSQL v9.70 Service Pack. (Login Required)
[+] Pervasive PSQL v9.52 (Service Pack 2 Updates)...
Pervasive PSQL v9.52, also known as the Service Pack 2 Updates, was not just one update, but was in fact was several updates, many with the same file names, some even with the same versions, but all containing slightly different releases of the PSQLv9 code.
These updates could be installed on top of PSQLv9.50 ONLY.
These SP2 Updates have been superceded by the Service Pack 3 patch.
Download the PSQL v9.52 Updates. (Login Required)
[+] Pervasive PSQL v9.50 (Service Pack 2)...
Pervasive PSQL v9.5 started shipping in May 2006. A free update (Service Pack 2) is available for any current Pervasive PSQL v9 user. This latest release provides quite a few new improvements, features and fixes on top of the gains in v9.1:
- Even Larger Database Support: The V9.5 data file format allows you to now use a 16K page, doubling the maximum file size AGAIN to 256GB and improving performance for data-laden servers.
More importantly, two critical bugs were fixed in the large file handling, making it now safe to use the unsegmented large files for your database!
- More Indexing: The newer format also allows a maximum of 420 key segments (up from 119 key segments in previous versions). This helps you expand your system towards the maximum of 119 indices, if you need them to help SQL performance or enhance your Btrieve applications!
- New Data Types: The GUID (UNIQUEIDENTIFIER) and DATETIME data types are now supported, with appropriate changes to the SQL scalar functions to support these types.
- New Scalar Functions: The DATEADD, DATEDIFF, DATENAME, and DATEPART functions have been added, improving compatibility with code from other SQL engines. This cuts down the learning curve!
- Improved Stored Procedure Performance: Your SPs can now be cached in memory, providing a noticeable performance gain.
- Improved Transactional Row-Level Locking: Low-level database developers will see big gains in this area.
- Temporary Table Support: FINALLY! The ability to create true temp tables in your SQL applications! Even better, you can use either Local or Global temporary tables.
- Improved Performance: Pervasive found an issue affecting performance on some systems in v9.1. This is now fixed!
Download the PSQL v9.50 Service Pack and Install Media. (Login Required)
[+] Pervasive PSQL v9.10 (Service Pack 1)...
Pervasive PSQL v9.10, also known as Service Pack 1, started shipping in June of 2005 and comprises a number of bug fixes to the initial release.
Service Pack 1 has been superceded by Service Pack 2 and above.
If you have PSQLv9.00, then you can patch to the Service Pack 1 update to get to v9.10, but we strongly recommend SP2 or higher instead..
Download the PSQL v9.10 Service Pack and Install Media. (Login Required)
[+] Pervasive PSQL v9.00 (FCS)...
Released in April of 2005, the FCS, or First Customer Ship, product build offers a lot of new features to users of PSQLV8 and older.
This is a paid upgrade to previous versions.
If you are running the v9.00 code (FCS), then we strongly recommend upgrading to SP2 or above.
Download the PSQL v9.00 Install Media. (Login Required)
[+] Frequently Asked Questions About Pervasive PSQL v9...
Q: Is PSQLv9 still supported?
A: Pervasive Software stopped supporting this engine on January 1, 2010. Goldstar Software continues to support it for our customers.
Q: My vendor doesn't support PSQLv9 yet. What can I do?
A: You can still purchase Pervasive.SQL V8 or older, but supplies are VERY limited at this time. The good news is that MOST applications will run just fine on PSQLv9 or PSQLv10. Set up a small test system and try it out -- you might be pleasantly surprised to find that it works just fine, saving you lots of time and money in the long run!
Q: Are all of the Ecosystem products (AuditMaster, DataExchange, Backup Agent) supported on Pervasive PSQL v9?
A: These products ARE supported, but you need a newer version than what is used with PSQLV8:
- BA 1.0 Not supported - Requires BA 1.1.
- DX 2.7 Not supported - Requires DX 2.8.
- AM 6.2 Not Supported - Requires AM 6.3.
Q: Is Pervasive PSQL v9 backward compatible with my older applications?
A: In many cases, yes. There are some exceptions, of course, but most applications will run just fine on the newer software. Developers using PDAC may need to update their code to the newer version.
Q: Are there any known problems with Pervasive PSQL v9?
A: To date, the only major issue that we have seen is the new default setting for "Embedded Spaces", which can cause some applications to return Status 11, 12, or 35 messages. If you get any of these status codes, disabling this setting in the PCC on each computer usually does the trick.
Q: If my application worked on PSQLv9.1, will it work on v9.5?
A: While it is still a good idea to test it, we've found no incompatibilities between PSQLv9.1 and PSQLv9.5 so far in our own testing. The new features can easily be ignored by older applications. One noted issue may result in the reduced support for page sizes, since fewer page sizes are now supported (1K, 2K, 4K, 8K, and 16K). Older apps should be transparent to the page size changes, but we've seen at least ONE application that can be sensitive to these changes. Also, older applications that do a BUTIL -STAT operation on tables may experience some problems with files over 119 key segments -- so be careful.
Q: Is Pervasive PSQL v9 supported on Windows Vista?
A: Windows Vista adds a whole new level to the security game. See our Vista Support page for more information and a link to the Pervasive White Paper on running PSQLv9 with Vista.
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If you have additional questions about the product, please contact us!
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