This notice is for all customers running VoiceConsole 5.6.2 or higher, up to VoiceConsole 6.1.

Honeywell has identified performance issues with the use of the embedded database in these versions. This issue presents as a decrease in performance during shift start up, which leads to VoiceConsole becoming unresponsive and a potential VoiceConsole application crash requiring a service restart. As the embedded database size increases (higher number of devices, operators, sites, etc.) the performance degradation can become more significant.

Honeywell is addressing this issue by retiring the embedded database and supporting the use of SQL Server Express or Oracle Express Edition free database versions on the next release of VoiceConsole, which is 6.2.

For customers currently using the embedded database on 5.6.2 through 6.1, Honeywell is expected to provide a data migration tool to move to one of the supported free database versions mentioned above. There is currently no ETA from Honeywell as to when that migration tool will be available. When Mountain Leverage is updated by Honeywell that it is available, this notice will also be updated.

Honeywell has confirmed that they have tested SQL Server Express with the aforementioned VoiceConsole versions and it tested to the same limitations as the embedded database - 2500 operators and 300 devices. They have, however, also noted the following:

• If the operation is considered critical, a free database should never be used in PROD environments. Always consider using an enterprise database with the proper support, especially if HA should be implemented.

• The free databases are recommended to be used for testing/demo purposes. Although they can sometimes be enough for loads similar to PROD environments, using a free database always has risks and limitations. This applies for any enterprise platform, not only VoiceConsole.

• For the SQL Server Express limitations, please refer to the corresponding Microsoft documentation.

  Overall, some of those limits are:

  • Compute: Limited to lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores

  • Buffer pool memory: 1410MB

  • Maximum database size: 10GB

  • High Availability: no failover clustering or availability groups

• Even though SQL Express has its own limitations, by using it instead of the embedded database, this will free the JVM used by VoiceConsole from the embedded database resource consumption in terms of memory. When using the embedded database, it would run on the same JVM meaning that, if you configured 1 GB of memory for VC, that 1 GB would need to be shared between the embedded database and the VC web application.

If you have any questions about this announcement, kindly submit them as a support request by emailing support@mountainleverage.com for further assistance.