Category: Developer News
News from the Firebird developers.
Firebird Roadmap updated for January
Roadmap Document has been updated with info for all supported releases : 2.5.x , 3.0.x , 4.x
| Version series 2.5.x has a maintenance cycle of two point releases per year.
The latest release currently available in this series is v2.5.8. Explore its download locationor documentation. v2.5.9 is the next point release to come, it’s scheduled for Q4 2018. Follow the “Track Details” icon for a list of bugfixes scheduled for this version. |
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Series 3.0.x
| Version series 3.0.x is the latest one released by the project and thus it has the highest priority in terms of the bug fixing, with updates scheduled quarterly. All kinds of bugfixes and performance improvements are possible inside its codebase, including ports to new platforms.
Key points:
The latest release currently available in this series is v3.0.2. Explore its download location or documentation. v3.0.3 is the next point release to come, it’s scheduled for Q1 2018. Follow the “Track Details” icon for a list of bugfixes scheduled for this version. |
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New Development: version 4.0
| Firebird 4.0 represents the project’s next milestone release after v3.0, its development has been started in March 2016.
You may check what features to expect at the v4.0 planning board. Use the “Track Details” icon to discover the list of tasks currently scheduled for v4.0 Beta Release. Alpha 1 preview release is available for testing. Daily v4.0 builds can be downloaded from the snapshot area. |
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ADO.NET provider 5.12.1.0 for Firebird is ready
Entity Framework Core 2.0 provider for Firebird now in beta
Jiří Činčura announced that Entity Framework Core 2.0 provider for Firebird is now in beta stage.
Presentations from Firebird Tour 2017: Firebird Performance and Tuning Linux and Windows
We start to publish presentations from Firebird Tour 2017. Please find the first 2 presentations below:
“Firebird Performance“, by Vlad Khorsun, Firebird Project
“Tuning Linux, Windows, and Firebird for heavy workload” by Alex Kovyazin, IBSurgeon.
More presentations will be published later – stay tuned!
HQbird 2018: New version of advanced FirebirdSQL distribution
We are glad to release the new major version of advanced Firebird (2.5 and 3.0) distribution: HQbird 2018. The key new features are the following:
- Online initialization of asynchronous replication (in the Enterprise edition). Now it is possible to initialize and re-initialize database replicas with zero downtime of the master server.
- Automatic performance monitoring (in all editions), with the performance reports which show the slowest and the most frequent SQL queries, and with the advanced monitoring of long-running active transactions.
- Pool of connections for external statements (for version 2.5) which greatly increases the performance of Execute On External statements
- Pool of prepared statements (for version 3.0) which greatly improves the performance in case of frequent parametrized queries
- New version of Firebird SQL Studio, now with the support of encrypted databases
Please refer to HQbird User Guide for more details!
For those, who downloaded trials of previous HQbird versions: we have reset all previous trial registrations to the end of December 2017.
All registered users of HQbird 2015, HQbird 2016 and HQbird 2017 will receive the free upgrade to HQbird 2018!
For Windows users – it is possible to install HQbird 2018 over the existing installation and keep the configuration.
HQbird 2018 comes in 3 editions:
- Standard ($399): automatic backups, automatic maintenance, and automatic performance monitoring
- Professional ($599): Standard + Recovery tools (FirstAID Tech Support) + SQL Studio.
- Enterprise ($799): Professional+ replication (asynchronous and synchronous)
More details here: https://ib-aid.com/en/hqbird-features
Please feel free to ask any questions through email support@ib-aid.com
ADO.NET provider 5.12.0.0 for Firebird is ready
UDFs are deprecated in Firebird 4
From Firebird 3 to 4 list of know incompatibilities file :
UDFs are deprecated in v.4. That means that UDFs can’t be used with default configuration (parameter “UdfAccess” set to “None”) and all sample UDF libraries (ib_udf, fbudf) are not distributed any more. Most of functions in that libraries were replaced with builtin analogs in previous versions and therefore already deprecated. A few remaining functions got safe replacement in UDR library “udf_compat“, namely div, frac, dow, sdow, getExactTimestampUTC and isLeapYear. Users who still wish to use UDFs should set “UdfAccess” to “Restrict <path-list>”. If you never used to modify this parameter before path-list is just UDF and resulting line in firebird.conf should be:
UdfAccess = Restrict UDF
Recommended long-term solution is replacing of UDF with UDR.
Ps: Here is the related git commit .
Firebird 3 Developers Guide (pre-beta) now available
The first pre-beta release of the English version of the Firebird 3 Develoepers Guide is now publicly available. Please report any problems or mistakes. The translation work, from Russian to English, was sponsored by a crowdfunding campaign. Thanks to all who contributed!
Fast, Furious, and Cheap: server with good-enough performance for small business database for less than US$1000
It is easy to get a powerful server if you are ready to spend many $$$: there are leading vendors like Dell, HP, and many less known hardware companies, they will be happy to sell you a powerful machine.
However, money is always a problem, especially for small businesses and start-ups, so there is a great demand for «good-enough» cheap solutions.
The new article from IBSurgeon describes the practical approach for building «good-enough» database server with the sufficient performance for small business. It also contains calculations and links to the specific products we recommend.
