This will be the first of what I’m sure will be many posts about the new features and changes that will be included in PinkNotes v5…A major change that we are making to the architecture of PinkNotes v5 is the move from the old MS Access database files that we have been using since version 2 to a SQL Server format. We feel that this has been a well overdue need in PinkNotes. The MDB files have served us well but there is only so much you can do with them and for v5 we really needed to make this change for a lot of the new things we wanted to accomplish. The database structure in v4 consisted of what could be hundreds on MDB files (depending on how many users you have). We will be taking all of the separate MDB’s and moving them into in SQL Server database with multiple tables for v5.

Right now we are planning to distribute Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with the installation for PNP v5. In no way will we limit you to the Express Edition. If your office already has a SQL Server setup you will easily be able to setup v5 with your existing SQL Server. We are including the Express Edition with PNP v5 because it can be used and distributed without licensing fees on any version of Windows 2000 or later. Plus it does not have a huge overhead that uses a lot of system resources.

Some of the main advantages of using SQL Server in v5 will be:

· Ease of managing a large amount of data from one location.
· The database can be remotely managed from any location (local network or internet).
· Faster searching of your PinkNotes Logs.
· More reliable storage of data.
· Easier to backup data.
· Overall improved speed in all the reads/writes that PNP has to do with the database.
· For those of you who want to be able to integrate other software applications with PNP it will be easier to accomplish this in the new database format.

There are a few drawbacks to using SQL Server though:

· The installation file to install v5 will be much larger because it will include the SQL Server Express Edition as well. We will have a few different types of installation files for those who already have an installation of SQL Server and for those who just need to install a client only.
· The install/upgrade for the PNP Master will take a little longer because you need to install the SQL Server and then all of your data will need to be upgrade from your MDB format to the SQL Server format. But, this of course will just be a one time process that needs to be done.

We feel that the few drawbacks are greatly outweighed by the advantages of using SQL Server that is why we decided to make the switch.