By utilizing the FILESTREAM attribute of the varbinary(MAX)  data type in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (any edition) we are actually storing the binary file information directly to an NTFS store configured on the same machine as the SQL Server instance.  Studies have shown that data under 256k is better stored and accessed through the SQL Server API in a varbinary(MAX) field and that blob data larger than 1MB performs better when streamed from an NTFS store.  FILESTREAM allows you to access your larger files more efficiently  so it doesn’t have to eat up the buffer in your database and cause massive slowdowns.  The system doesn’t work well with numerous read/writes because it completely replaces the blob data each time, leading to data fragmentation.  Luckily most of our correspondence is set it and forget it.

Here is the  initial list of supported file formats:

• Plain text files (.txt)**
• Rich text files (.rtf)**
• Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)*
• All image files (.jpg/.jpeg/.bmp/.gif/.png/.tif)*
• MS Office Excel (.xls / .xlsx)
• MS Office Word (.doc/.docx)

* Viewable from within the application
** Editable and viewable from with the application

It will feature:

• drag and drop storage or viewing of documents/images/text from the file system or the clipboard
• variable replacement based on database values or business logic
• multiple points of integration: depending on the command line, the file cabinet will be specific to a user, shipment, or account
• assignment of viewing/editing rights to other users

Our previous version of this product was the “Correspondence Manager” which stored paths to file locations but still offered variable replacement and rich text editing.

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Speaking of the “new software”, we are at a pivotal point in the development process.  One of our main focuses is the migration from a file-based TopSpeed DB to Microsoft SQL Server.  The goal is more reliability and scalability.  While Bob is off somewhere sipping on bahama mamas and NOT thinking about Direct Systems, he has tasked me with setting up a fresh instance of MS SQL Server 2008 Express Edition on our newly re-purposed file server turned development server.  There are many prerequisites like the annoying Web Platform Installer (PI) and .NET 3.5 SP1 among a laundry list of others. The key here is merging our two databases together.  Until now, Bob and I have been working off of essentially the same data hosted on our individual computers.  It’s time to join forces and show everyone how well our two systems work together.  I’ll go into more detail in another post.

For now, just know that the install is complete and the .sql files have all been processed.  And I can rest easy tonight, just like Bob probably is…

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