Disable Microsoft SQL File Streaming to increase document speed access in your Maximizer database
If you have upgraded to Maximizer 11 from an earlier version and your document storage for your database is large, you may have notice that Maximizer has slowed down. This is because of the Microsoft File Streaming
Maximizer has enabled Microsoft SQL File Streaming for their SQL database to handle the database size limitation issue and even though it has increased the size capacity of their database limit, which is a good thing, it has also had the backlash effect of slowing down database response time. The larger the amount of document storage the large the response time for Maximizer to sorts through the SQL indexes to find and return the list of documents related the Maximizer entry you just selected.
Now if you had a database which was larger than 4 GBs you just had to live with this issue as we had to live with the database size restrictions in Microsoft SQL express 2008. This is no longer the case. Microsoft in March of 2012, release the latest SQL Express Engine “Microsoft SQL Server Express 2012” with a database size limit of 10GBs. IslandCRM has tested Maximizer 11 and Maximizer 12 (Entrepreneur and Group Editions) against the new Microsoft SQL Server 2012 engine and it responds faster than the Microsoft SQL 2008 engine without disabling File Streaming for the documents folder, but has increased performance with the additional step of disabling File Streaming.
So in summary, if you have a Maximizer database on the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 engine and you are experiencing slow database response times related to document access / storage and your database size is less than 10 GBs, you should be able to increase your database response time by performing 2 steps:
- Upgrade your Microsoft SQL Server Engine to the new Microsoft SQL Express 2012 edition
- Disable document File Streaming for all your Maximizer databases.
These steps should only be performed by a Maximizer / SQL server trained technician and all Maximizer databases should be backed up before this maintenance is performed.
The technical steps to Disable File Streaming for a Maximizer database
Prerequisite:
- Base Microsoft Operating System must be Microsoft Vista / Microsoft Server 2008 or above.
- System memory minimum requirements in 2 Gigs of RAM, 4 Gigs of RAM is recommended.
- Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005 / 2008 / 2008 R2.
- Maximizer database size less than 10 GBs (This is the database size limit for Microsoft SQL Server Express 2012 Edition).
STEP 1 (Upgrade Microsoft SQL Server Express Engine):
- Perform a Backup of all your Maximizer databases before performing this SQL maintenance. I would suggesting downloading and installing MaxBackup from our IslandCRM downloads page, to backup your Maximizer database before performing this maintenance and to automate future Maximizer backups.
- Download the Microsoft SQL Server Express 2012 engine WT (with tools) from Microsoft, 64-bit version or 32-bit version depending on your operating system.
- Upgrade the existing Microsoft SQL Express instance and install the SQL Express management studio.
STEP 2 (Disable SQL File Streaming for your Maximizer database):
- Perform another Backup of all Maximizer databases before performing this SQL maintenance. Again I would suggesting downloading and installing MaxBackup from our IslandCRM downloads page, to backup your Maximizer database before performing this maintenance and to automate future Maximizer backups.
- Disable File Streaming for the Maximizer SQL instance / server in Microsoft SQL Management Studio.
- Open Maximizer and create a new Maximizer database for each database you need to disable File Streaming on. Please remember that you will have to recreate all the Maximizer User IDs that exist in the old database in the new database and perform and synchronize function in the Maximizer Administrator program. (This database will be set to not file stream files and will store all documents and files in the MDF and LDF SQL files, which respond much faster than the File Stream SQL folder)
- Enable File Streaming for the Maximizer SQL instance / server in Microsoft Management Studio. This is so you can access the original File Streaming database again.
- Open Maximizer and login to the file streaming database and perform a transfer for all Maximizer entries to the new NON File Streaming Maximizer database.
- Remove the file streaming database from the list of available database to log into for Maximizer.
- Disable file streaming for the Maximizer SQL instance / server in Microsoft Management Studio.
- Use this newly created Maximizer database as your Maximizer database going forward.
Note: Any personal tasks and appointment (Tasks and Appointment not assigned to Maximizer entries, will not be transferred, so personal tasks and appointments should be assigned to a Maximizer Entry before the transfer process is performed.
Cheers,
Shannon Porter (The Maximizer Guy)























