NetSupport DNA : Anyone run it with full SQL?

[fiza]

We have around 1300 users and 600 computers/laptops that DNA presides over. Our DNA Database is always complaining that it is nearly full. Even deleting everything prior to this academic year it still sits at 82% full. Netsupport have said I should consider installing full SQL rather than using SQL Express. Before I go to the expense of getting full SQL I wanted to know if other schools ran with full SQL or is SQL Express doing the job fine?

[Norphy]

I use SQL Standard for our DNA database. I didn't want to be in your situation.

 

With around 2000 computers and 5000 users, our database has grown to about 19GB since starting to use it at the beginning of the academic year.

 

FWIW, the last quote I got for a SQL Standard license was £51 a year so it's not massively expensive.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Norphy

[gumbygaz]

We're always at 80-90% full, I just thought it was a limitation of DNA Will have a look at getting a full SQL licence then

Cheers for the info.

[Primus]

Yup feeling this pain too - quite annoyed with NetSupport - when you pay for a product you don't then expect to have to purchase additional products to support it!

[fiza]

FWIW, the last quote I got for a SQL Standard license was £51 a year so it's not massively expensive.

Can I ask where you got that quote from? My reseller has just come back with £284 per core (minimum 2 cores required for VM) per year.

[Norphy]

European Electronique

[fiza]

European Electronique

 

I am guessing due to the numbers of users and computers your quoted that you are connected to a much bigger institute than our school? Hence you get better pricing as you will be on a different type of agreement.

[Norphy]

SQL comes in two license types though, one is licensed per CAL and the other per CPU core. I got the CAL license as CALs are covered by our desktop license bundle. It sounds like you might have got the CPU core license.

[fiza]

SQL comes in two license types though, one is licensed per CAL and the other per CPU core. I got the CAL license as CALs are covered by our desktop license bundle. It sounds like you might have got the CPU core license.

 

Thanks - Never knew that. Will ask my reseller to re-quote for CAL license. Would this go on FTE count or the actual users that use NetSupport DNA?

[Norphy]

FTE count AFAIK

 

The core license is only worth getting if you're either running hundreds of SQL servers on a virtual farm and/or you're running a SQL database which requires hundreds/thousands of users. With the CAL license, you'd have to get one per installation of SQL but on a server farm with 24 CPU cores, you'd have to have a lot of SQL licenses before that starts to become the value option.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Norphy

[MW_NetSupport]

We're always at 80-90% full, I just thought it was a limitation of DNA Will have a look at getting a full SQL licence then

Cheers for the info.

 

This is a limit set by SQL Express which restricts the database to 10GB in size. The full version of SQL has a limit of 524 PB (Petabytes), so it's more likely you'll hit the limits of your storage long before SQL has problems with the database size.

 

You can check how the database is being used from the DNA Console Tools Tab > Database Maintenance > Data Size tab. From here it's also possible to remove old data to reduce the database size. Moving the database from SQL Express to full SQL is pretty straight forward and should only take around 15-20 minutes. If you give our support team a call they will be happy to setup a remote session and guide you through the process.

[Primus]

This is a limit set by SQL Express which restricts the database to 10GB in size. The full version of SQL has a limit of 524 PB (Petabytes), so it's more likely you'll hit the limits of your storage long before SQL has problems with the database size.

 

You can check how the database is being used from the DNA Console Tools Tab > Database Maintenance > Data Size tab. From here it's also possible to remove old data to reduce the database size. Moving the database from SQL Express to full SQL is pretty straight forward and should only take around 15-20 minutes. If you give our support team a call they will be happy to setup a remote session and guide you through the process.

 

I still think you need to be much more upfront when selling your product - none of this is mentioned and we're an average sized school that repeatedly hits the maximum and never seem to manage to clear it down enough to make it go more than a month without hitting the issue again. When I buy a full on commercial product I expect it to include everything necessary to run said product in the scale your marketing materials sell it at.

 

Long story short selling a product that is hamstrung by SQL Express and only being forthcoming on these limitations when users experience issues is incredibly poor customer service.

 

We also have a major issue with slowness of our DNA console and recent support experiences have been like pulling teeth with people not getting back to us etc.

 

Tagging @Al_NetSupport

[Al_NetSupport]

Thanks for tagging me in so i could see this thread.

 

There are a couple of strands here and I hope I can respond on both, but please anyone feel free to PM me if you would like me to call or arrange for one of our support team to.

 

NetSupport DNA has always shipped with a free copy of SQL Express included and this has always had the pre-imposed storage limit that Microsoft includes with it, during install you are guided to either use the free version or point to your own instance of SQL. This isn't an unusual approach for a lot of products as its impossible to ship it with a permanent SQL licence ( that's unique to each user/school). @Primus happy to chat and i'm sorry you have been having issues ( I believe support have been attempting to make contact with you regarding your performance issue but clearly you aren't getting the feedback you need so i will speak to the team today.) but i don't agree we aren't upfront about this, it is something mentioned consistently, i will take your comment away and look to see if it can be included in other places as well to ensure nobody is unaware of SQL Lite storage limits.

 

Storage limits are down to a number of variables and typically result from schools choosing to capture more Safeguarding content ( I.e capture screenshots or video for more low-level keyword terms) and or choosing to retain their data for a longer period of time. Some schools add a range of extra terms, including names of games etc, or just trigger keyword screen captures on every term and of course, this results in a huge increase in data ( video screen captures even more so) . This has to be balanced with a retention period or server capacity. I hope most will appreciate its impossible for us to control how much data each school chooses to store which is why we give the choice of using the free instance of SQL lite included with the download or pointing to a full SQL instance for unlimited storage.

 

Most of you know me, and I do listen, if you think we are being unreasonable in some way or it's not clear enough, then please PM and tell me, and should anyone else feel support haven't responded quickly enough ( @Primus i hear you ), which I believe is a normally very rare event, you can always make me aware and i will chase straight away.

 

Hope that helps

 

Al. ( I'm at the Edugeek conference on the 30th so always up for a chat ) .

Edited May 15, 2019 by Al_NetSupport

[Norphy]

Thanks for tagging me in so i could see this thread.

 

There are a couple of strands here and I hope I can respond on both, but please anyone feel free to PM me if you would like me to call or arrange for one of our support team to.

 

NetSupport DNA has always shipped with a free copy of SQL Express included and this has always had the pre-imposed storage limit that Microsoft includes with it, during install you are guided to either use the free version or point to your own instance of SQL. This isn't an unusual approach for a lot of products as its impossible to ship it with a permanent SQL licence ( that's unique to each user/school). @Primus happy to chat and i'm sorry you have been having issues ( I believe support have been attempting to make contact with you regarding your performance issue but clearly you aren't getting the feedback you need so i will speak to the team today.) but i don't agree we aren't upfront about this, it is something mentioned consistently, i will take your comment away and look to see if it can be included in other places as well to ensure nobody is unaware of SQL Lite storage limits.

 

Storage limits are down to a number of variables and typically result from schools choosing to capture more Safeguarding content ( I.e capture screenshots or video for more low-level keyword terms) and or choosing to retain their data for a longer period of time. Some schools add a range of extra terms, including names of games etc, or just trigger keyword screen captures on every term and of course, this results in a huge increase in data ( video screen captures even more so) . This has to be balanced with a retention period or server capacity. I hope most will appreciate its impossible for us to control how much data each school chooses to store which is why we give the choice of using the free instance of SQL lite included with the download or pointing to a full SQL instance for unlimited storage.

 

Most of you know me, and I do listen, if you think we are being unreasonable in some way or it's not clear enough, then please PM and tell me, and should anyone else feel support haven't responded quickly enough ( @Primus i hear you ), which I believe is a normally very rare event, you can always make me aware and i will chase straight away.

 

Hope that helps

 

Al. ( I'm at the Edugeek conference on the 30th so always up for a chat ) .

 

Out of curiosity, is there a reason why DNA uses MSSQL over one of the free database engines out there such as Postgres? I totally understand your reasons for not being able to bundle a SQL license into your product but perhaps supporting other database engines besides MS might be solution of sorts.

[Primus]

Out of curiosity, is there a reason why DNA uses MSSQL over one of the free database engines out there such as Postgres? I totally understand your reasons for not being able to bundle a SQL license into your product but perhaps supporting other database engines besides MS might be solution of sorts.

 

This! When purchased DNA should come with everything necessary and I'm grateful for your response Al but at no point has anyone ever mentioned needing a full SQL licence to me other than recently when we started having issues.

[Olliekai]

I find NetSupports support to be really good generally, but I have to say it wasn't clear to me when we got DNA that SQL Lite wouldn't be enough. I think it would be helpful to state this clearly in the system requirements.

 

Thanks for tagging me in so i could see this thread.

 

There are a couple of strands here and I hope I can respond on both, but please anyone feel free to PM me if you would like me to call or arrange for one of our support team to.

 

NetSupport DNA has always shipped with a free copy of SQL Express included and this has always had the pre-imposed storage limit that Microsoft includes with it, during install you are guided to either use the free version or point to your own instance of SQL. This isn't an unusual approach for a lot of products as its impossible to ship it with a permanent SQL licence ( that's unique to each user/school). @Primus happy to chat and i'm sorry you have been having issues ( I believe support have been attempting to make contact with you regarding your performance issue but clearly you aren't getting the feedback you need so i will speak to the team today.) but i don't agree we aren't upfront about this, it is something mentioned consistently, i will take your comment away and look to see if it can be included in other places as well to ensure nobody is unaware of SQL Lite storage limits.

 

Storage limits are down to a number of variables and typically result from schools choosing to capture more Safeguarding content ( I.e capture screenshots or video for more low-level keyword terms) and or choosing to retain their data for a longer period of time. Some schools add a range of extra terms, including names of games etc, or just trigger keyword screen captures on every term and of course, this results in a huge increase in data ( video screen captures even more so) . This has to be balanced with a retention period or server capacity. I hope most will appreciate its impossible for us to control how much data each school chooses to store which is why we give the choice of using the free instance of SQL lite included with the download or pointing to a full SQL instance for unlimited storage.

 

Most of you know me, and I do listen, if you think we are being unreasonable in some way or it's not clear enough, then please PM and tell me, and should anyone else feel support haven't responded quickly enough ( @Primus i hear you ), which I believe is a normally very rare event, you can always make me aware and i will chase straight away.

 

Hope that helps

 

Al. ( I'm at the Edugeek conference on the 30th so always up for a chat ) .