11/30/2010

Firebird Case Studies Catalog

To support Firebird Project and MindTheBird!, we'll re-print their message here:

Hello All Firebirders!

Today we start very important activity  - building Firebird Case Studies catalog.


WHAT IS CASE STUDY?

Case study is an example of real-world implementation of certain product. Case study should be very specific and describe
1) technical details (database size, # of users, transactions load),
2) type of business (ERP, hospital automations, CD catalogs, web-sites
examples, etc) and
3) business value – license costs economy, performance increasing, etc.


WHY FIREBIRD PROJECT NEEDS YOUR CASE STUDIES?

People are looking for templates in all areas of the life.
There are hundreds of “sitting ducks” Firebird deployments, which are very good in all terms – database sizes, # of users, high ROI for business, etc, etc.


We need to go for them and build the collection of case studies at www.firebirdsql.org web-site to clearly demonstrate to the world the actual value of Firebird deployments.


This is very important for Firebird Project future development and its recognition in IT world. Let's expose the power of Firebird to everybody, and for this we need participation of each Firebird developer!


WHO CAN PARTICIPATE IN FIREBIRD CASE STUDY CATALOG?

Yes, you can!
Firebird needs case studies and stories of all types - so regardless of what software you create - for bakery automation or to navigate space ships - create and submit your case study.
Every EXE-file or web-site which uses Firebird is important for Firebird project, if it does useful things. It will take only 1-2 hours and it will help Firebird a lot!


HOW TO CREATE FIREBIRD CASE STUDY?

Download Firebird Case Study Guide and Template www.mindthebird.com/docs/firebird_case_study_template.doc

You will go through several steps that are described in this template and then fill out the necessary text sections, attach appropriate graphics and write several quotes.  We estimate time to create case
study in 1-1.5 hour.


Only case studies in English are accepted, but if you have Case Study in several languages, it will be good addition.


If you have several good examples of Firebird usage, create several Case Studies for each.

The result will be submitted to Firebird Project Marketing and a professional designer will create the final case study document in PDF format.


PRIZES AND BENEFITS

Every submitted case study will be considered by MindTheBird Team and Firebird Project Marketing and, if it will be considered as a good and complete description of the real-world project or existing packaged
software, it will be included into Firebird Case Studies Catalog at firebirdsql.org, which will run in Q1 of 2011.
First 20 Case Studies will have prizes from the list www.mindthebird.com/benefits.html and, of course, they will be specially listed at minthebird.com and, later, at firebirdsql.org.


ANY QUESTIONS?

Send your questions to case(at)mindthebird.com

11/29/2010

Vacations' corruptions

Every year we have numerous corruption requests after vacations. Unattended computer systems can reach their implementation limits or encounter hidden problems, like lack of space, HDD bad blocks, automatic updates, etc.
Firebird is a software too, and it has "popular" reasons to stop working while administrator enjoys roasted turkey.
Before vacations and after them we recommend to check the free space on HDD with database and HDD on backups, check the transaction markers state (gstat -h) for the gaps and limits and, if possible, perform full backup/restore cycle (with gbak -b/gbak -r).
These simple actions can save your database from "vacations' corruptions".