Hi all, Firstly let me start by saying that I am not a tech, even though I am the DB Admin for our RE system. We recently upgraded from RE 7.61 to RE 7.7, resulting in our DB to ballon to 1.6GB, owing to the near-instant creation of 770,000 action notepads. I am currently pricing supplier of SQL Standard for a server licence and 10 user licences. My question is: How do I upsize our RE database to the SQL version from the MSDE version? Can I simply just install the SQL server software, detach our DB and re-attach it? Any help would be most welcome cheers Rob Rob Wild Database Officer Development & Alumni University of Adelaide [Email Removed]

Hi Rob I am looking to upgrade from 7.61 to 7.7 very soon and we currently use MSDE. So I'm a bit concerned to note your database ballooned in size. Do you know what caused the sudden creation of 770,000 Action notepads? Do Blackbaud Support know about this? Is there a bug? Is there something peculiar to your setup? Or is this to do with new Action features that have been introduced in 7.7? Sorry to ask questions without supplying any help on your initial question. Nicki Nicki Hastie Information Officer Development & Alumni Office Nottingham Trent University [Email Removed]

As I understand it the addition of Action Notepads and Gift Notepads is a new "feature" of RE 7.7. In the conversion guides somewhere it mentions a significant size increase in your database. It says to anticipate 2.5x the current RE6.42 size. Something like that anyway. In our test conversions from RE6 to RE7.7 we saw the addition of 1,351,119 Action Notepads. Hooray!

Rob - there is a link somewhere in Blackbaud's site for ways to get cheap Microsoft products for non-profits, including schools. You may also want to check with your school's IT people, as they likely have a blanket license for SQL 2000 already.

Peter Gulka
NAIT Alumni & Development Office
Edmonton AB Canada
email: [Email Removed]

--- Edited at 4/28/2005 10:19:11 AM by Scott Fortnum

Rob, In simple terms, yes all you do is detach the database from the BB Management Console and then attach to SQL Server 2000 and then re-attach that to the BB Management Console. However you still need to know how to setup SQL Server 2000 and how to setup Maintenance Plans and a Backup Schedule. While you can use the BB Management Console to control this, I'd advise against it and setup your own through SQL. You can setup multiple backup types instead of a simple daily backup. And you can change the recovery mode, the default is Simple and you will probably want to change it to Full. The difference is that Simple is an all of nothing backup, if you make a mistake or need to recovery to a previous backup, you have the option of what you have right now or the last backup. With Full you have the choice of what you have now, what you last backed up or a point in time like say just before you went to lunch and that new person deleted 50 records. As for getting a copy of SQL Server 2000 and licenses, contact CDW-G since you're an educational institution. The pricing is much lower for education. All you'll need is SQL Server 2000 Standard by the sound of what you have going on. You're probably looking at about $2,000 for it and if you don't qualify for an educational discount it'll be about $5,000. I would also recommend you take some classes on SQL Server Programming and Administration if you haven't already. You really need to know what is going on with this and how to manage it. Going from MSDE to SQL Server 2000 is like equivalent of Soapbox Derby Racing and IndyCar Racing, not only in complexity but also power, functionality, and technology wise. Jeff Schroeder Database Manager Francis Parker School San Diego, CA [Email Removed] "Work Smarter, Not Harder!"

Nicki We're on 7.7 and our database is around 1.2Gb now; under 7.6 it was around 1 to 1.1Gb. So although BB apparently warn about an increase in size due to the splitting of attributes / notes, the increase we've seen has been modest. Mark -- Mark Pimperton Development Office Loughborough University UK www.lboro.ac.uk/alumni

Many thanks all for the advice, It looks like we may have to spend $15K AUD, as we will have to get a new box to host it as well. Also now looking into SQL Server training. Rob Wild Database Officer Development & Alumni University of Adelaide [Email Removed]