3. Installing SQL Server

Axiell Collections requires:

  • A Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Server Express database.
  • SQL Server Management Studio to manage the databaseClosed SQL Server Management Studio is an integrated environment to manage a SQL Server infrastructure. It provides a user interface and a group of tools with rich script editors that interact with SQL Server.

    Tip: Accept the default settings when installing SQL Server Management Studio.

The quickest way to set up a SQL database for Axiell Collections is to restore a pre-configured SQL database backup file (with or without demo data) provided by Axiell. Details for restoring a database are provided in 3. Create or restore a SQL database.

Here you will find details about supported versions of SQL Server, minimum requirements, installing SQL Server, creating a new database, and methods of authentication.

Although any SQL database supported by Microsoft can be used, GIS (Geographic Information System) functionality introduced with Axiell Collections version 1.7 requires SQL Server 2017 as a minimum. This functionality1 is optional and if not required, an earlier SQL database can be used.

Although Microsoft recommends hosting SQL Server on a physical machine rather than virtual machine, SQL Server can run successfully on a virtual machine.

If running SQL Server on a virtual machine it is critical to follow best practices as SQL is resource intensive. Details here.

Allow at least 4GB of memory for the SQL server, and 100GB disk space; increase by 1GB for each additional 100,000 records to ensure optimal performance.

If using Active Directory authentication to access the database rather than SQL Server authentication, the application pool created when installing the Axiell Collections software must be configured to use an account that has access to the SQL Server.

The easiest way to set up access rights for multiple users is to use SQL Server authentication and set the process model identity of your application pool to NetworkService. Users will be able to log in to Axiell Collections with their Windows user name, but at the SQL database level all users will have access via the same SQL Server user name.

Users can still be assigned specific access rights with Axiell Designer, but the one SQL user must have database owner rights because some user actions cause the creation of new SQL database tables (such as the first time a user creates a saved search in a data source).

The free SQL Server Express database can be used, but be aware that it has technical restrictions that might make it unsuitable for some customers (a maximum database size of 10GB per database, for example).

When installing SQL Express, accept the Default settings.

Assistance with installing and configuring SQL Server can be found in the following PDF:

Note: This document was written as a guide to installing the Adlib application. The Adlib application is now the Collections application.