External SQL database support for storage
and retrieval of historical data is now present in version 4.
Earlier versions of the IGSS32 system - including IGSS32 version 3 - uses the Microsoft Jet Engine Database as
a standard tool for storage and retrieval of historical values for further processing in reports and other
database applications. The
Microsoft Jet Engine Database is a great tool that is simple to use and installs without any license
or royalty fee. In plants where the amount of historical data is limited, this poses
no problem.
But the Jet Engine Database's limitations can become a
problem when the amount of stored data increases, typically in larger
process plants. Performance can decline and data integrity becomes
uncertain. The result might be longer response times for generation of
IGSS32 reports or corrupted databases that continuously need repair, or both.
This can be observed in situations where the amount of historical is
more than 1GB, which exceeds the capacity of the Jet Engine.
But with IGSS32's
full support for Microsoft SQL Server version 7 and higher and Oracle 8i as
external SQL databases for storing historical data, the Jet Engine limitation is
no longer a problem. Both of these database products are
capable of managing huge amounts of data
and they provide the user with great flexibility in terms of scalability and implementation of
truly large-
scale database applications.