What Was New in PSQL v13
An Overview of Features in PSQL v13
The General Release of PSQL v13, version 13.00, included new features and changes covered in the following topics:
These release notes may be updated after the product release. You can download the latest version from the
Actian website.
Client Reporting Engine
Big report queries can impose a large load on Pervasive PSQL Server, competing for resources with the normal stream of smaller transactions. To reduce the load on Pervasive PSQL Server for report execution, you can set up Pervasive PSQL Client Reporting Engine as a proxy server. This specialized 64-bit engine combines features of Pervasive PSQL Relational Engine and Pervasive PSQL Client Cache Engine to enable offloading of SQL reporting jobs to lessen their impact on server activity. When big report queries run on the reporting engine instead of on the server, server performance for normal production operations can improve.
Reporting Engine Configuration
A Client Reporting Engine is configured with the name of a Pervasive PSQL Server as its “storage engine,” where the master copy of all data continues to reside. Once configured, the reporting engine presents to SQL clients all of the same databases as the server, and all SQL queries can then be submitted to the reporting engine. Use of reporting engine requires you to make changes in your design so that queries and other supporting requests are sent to this client instead of to the server.
New and Revised Performance Counters
Pervasive PSQL Client Reporting Engine has Windows performance counters to track cache usage. Pervasive PSQL Server and Vx Server now have Windows performance counters that distinguish between direct application use and use by remote cache engines, such as the reporting engine. In addition, the counter for cache-hit-ratio has been changed to reflect recent activity instead of cumulative.
Note Although most database operations could successfully execute on this specialized engine, it is designed for read-mostly reporting jobs. The Reporting Engine may be used by Btrieve applications as an always-on Client Cache Engine.
New Btrieve API
PSQL v13 provides a new and simplified C/C++ API for Btrieve. The Windows DLLs needed for this API are automatically installed with Pervasive PSQL.
The SDK for this new Btrieve API also includes SWIG files for use with scripting languages such as Python, perl, and PHP to enable the API to serve as native objects in those environments.
To learn more, see the Pervasive PSQL Data Access Methods documentation at
docs.actian.com.
Beta Release for New Platforms
PSQL v13 runs on the following new platforms:
•Windows IoT Core on x86 and 32-bit ARM
•Windows Nano Server
•Raspbian (32-bit ARM)
In this release, support for these platforms is beta and has the following limitations:
•Available only for Server and Client editions.
•Installation on Windows uses a .zip archive and a script.
•Installation on Raspbian is a .tar file and a script. Installation steps are the same as for Pervasive PSQL on Linux.
•Licensing uses license keys instead of product keys.
•On Windows IoT Core, Pervasive PSQL supports only CLI utilities, and local access methods are Btrieve, ODBC by direct link (without driver manager), and DTI.
•On Windows Nano Server, Pervasive PSQL supports only CLI utilities, and local access methods are Btrieve, ODBC by direct link (without driver manager), and DTI.
•On Raspbian, Pervasive PSQL does not support PCC or DDF Builder.
•The new Pervasive PSQL Client Reporting Engine is supported on Windows Nano Server.
Pervasive PSQL installation has also been tested successfully with Docker for Windows.
New Schema Export and Import in PCC
PSQL v13 extends schema management capabilities by adding database-level exporting of all metadata to a SQL script. Importing this script into a new database allows you to do several useful things:
•Recreate an entire database.
•Migrate from V1 to V2 format.
•Identify and troubleshoot metadata issues in the original database.
Cache Management
PSQL v13 provides the butil utility with two new command options:
•-cache, which preloads pages for a file into cache, returning when either the file is fully cached or the cache is full.
•-purge, which flushes all unneeded cached pages for a file. It returns immediately if the file has open handles.
These two commands are complementary. Their actions apply only to the server engine cache rather than to the cache of any client or reporting engine.
SDK Access Methods
The following access method has been updated in this release.
ADO.NET
PSQL v13 has updated the Pervasive PSQL ADO.NET SDK with ADO.NET Entity Framework Provider 4.3, adding support for Microsoft Entity Framework 6.1 and skip() syntax.
Note ADO.NET Entity Framework Provider 4.0 is no longer supported in this release.
DTI
To address a conflict with the Microsoft Windows header file security.h, the file by this name in the PSQL v13 DTI SDK has been renamed dtisecurity.h. Its behavior is unchanged.
SQL Syntax Enhancements
PSQL v13 extends its support for SQL with the following new features:
•As an alternative to TOP, LIMIT… OFFSET… syntax is now supported to extract a set of rows from a query result.
•DROP IF EXISTS syntax is now supported for all database objects, such as views and procedures.
•ORDER BY is now supported in expression subqueries in addition to table subqueries.
Deprecated Features
PSQL v13 no longer supports the following items:
•Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Support continues for Windows Server 2008 R2
•ADO.NET Entity Framework Provider 4.0
•PSQL v13 does not currently support upgrading of systems with previous versions of Backup Agent, AuditMaster, or DataExchange. These products must be uninstalled before upgrading to PSQL v13. We recommend that you back up your data and save configuration settings from these three products before removing them.