Installing SQL Server for FNMS: What Features Did You Choose?

[mfeinman]

Hi all ...

When you installed SQL Server for use by FNMS, did you give any consideration to the available options in the Feature Selection list and de-select the ones you felt you didn't need, or did you just "install everything" because it was easier to do that?

When you installed SQL Server, did you realize, sometime after initial installation, that an optional feature would have been useful, so you went back and installed that feature?  For example, did you go back to install the "full-text and semantic extractions for search" thinking it might help optimize queries against the database? (I don't know if this is true or not so it might be a poor example.)

To me, the essential instance features to install are:

• Database Engine
• Client Tools Connectivity
• Client Tools SDK
• SQL Client Connectivity SDK
• SQL Server Management Studio

I'm curious what the community has done.  Thanks!

--Mark

[erwinlindemann · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Although this post is from August, I wanted to give a short feedback:

• As described in the FNMS 'System Requirements' document, make sure you install a version and edition of SQL server that is compatible with the version of FNMS that you are using. Also, make sure that the .NET (CLR) integration is enabled.
• The SQL Server client tools (Client Tool Connectivity, Client Tools SDK and Client Connectivity SDK are required for developing or using custom interfaces to SQL Server only.
• For SQL Server, the 'Database Engine' is always required.
• Installing SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is recommended. However, SSMS can be downloaded from Microsoft as a standalone tool, and can be installed independently of SQL Server.

The "full-text and semantic extractions for search" feature of SQL Server is not being used by current releases of FNMS.

The only exception is the (deprecated) FNMS Contract Portal. Installing this feature will not have any impact on the performance of queries against the database.

[mfeinman]

I recently ran the Compliance database upgrade script (going from FNMS 2019R1 to 2022R1) and noticed that the migration script ended with the following statement:

Full-text indexes not created because the full-text feature of SQL is not installed

Does this imply that I should install the full-text feature, or is that simply informational?

--Mark

[ChrisG]

@mfeinman - the note about the full-text feature is informational only. There was some functionality in FlexNet Manager Suite that was deprecated (many years ago now) that used this feature, but it is not a current dependency.