Should you upgrade Overseer to use MSSQL?

An Overseer 4.1 customer recently asked me when upgrading to 5.0, if they should consider using the MSSQL add-on. While some customers have explicitly asked for Overseer to utilize an MSSQL database, others aren’t necessarily sure what benefits it provides. This blog post will discuss the reasons to use the MSSQL add-in.

Performance

If you have hundreds of resources, and/or use a very short ‘check every’ setting on your resources, Overseer can spend a considerable amount of time waiting for the file system to write data to disk. The default SQLite database works well, but it is built with data-integrity in mind, versus performance– so sometimes a SQLite database will be slower than an MSSQL database. MSSQL uses different algorithms to assure data integrity, which work quite well, while not hurting performance as much as SQLite’s algorithms do.

Additionally, when Overseer uses MSSQL as its database, MSSQL can be running on the same or a different server. This has the potential to allow you to use a far more powerful computer configured as an MSSQL server(likely also used for other applications at your location).

Data Accessibility

If you have a need or desire to access the Overseer data, using MSSQL as the Overseer database is the ideal choice. You can easily open the database in standard MSSQL tools, or integrate easily with your website using code that simply connects to the MSSQL database and queries the data. This makes more extensive reporting possible, along with website status display, etc.

Backup

Overseer supports backing up its database using the Tools->Backup and Restore wizard. This works when using SQLite or MSSQL as the database. When MSSQL is used as the database, however, online backups can be performed using your standard MSSQL backup tools– potentially alongside other MSSQL databases used in your organization.

I’m convinced– how do I use it?

Once you’ve purchased the MSSQL add-on module, you can configure Overseer to use MSSQL as it’s database by following this blog post:

Using MSSQL for Overseer’s database