## Manual actions

The following sections provide information on the manual actions that you can use to manage your databases.

To perform an action manually, do one of the following:

Right-click Databases and select the action from the menu, or

Right-click the specific database and select the action you want to perform from the pop-up menu.

When you right-click Databases and select an action, a dialog specific to that action opens. The databases listed in the dialog are those to which the action applies.

When you right-click a specific database, only the actions that apply to that database appear in the menu and the database is selected by default in the dialog for the action.

### Archive

The Archive action creates an archive of the selected database.

Note

The Database to archive list only shows your live database unless Show Archives is selected.

Right-click Databases or and select Archive to open the Database Archive dialog. If necessary, select the database that you want to archive.

Click the browse button to select the location for the saved archive.

The directory ...\\config\cfg\Archives\Data is the default location for the saved archive, but you can specify another local directory (you can only save an archive to a directory on the local machine, not to a location on the network).

Type a name for the archive.

After you select the location, the archive is given a default filename, but you can rename the archive to follow your naming conventions.

Select the data types that you want to archive.

Specify the date range of the data that you want to archive. For Start, select The beginning of the database or select Date and enter a date and time. Enter a date and time for End Date.

Under Trim after archive select whether or not you want to remove archived data from the database.

When you select a start date for the archive procedure instead of using the beginning of the database, the option to trim the live database is disabled, even if you selected the trim option before you set the date range.

Click OK.

The Progress field displays the current progress of the archive process. If a manual archive does not succeed, a message appears and the Database Archive dialog remains open with the OK button grayed out — examine the Progress field to discover where the process did not succeed. If the archive is successful, the dialog closes automatically.

### Attach

The Attach action reattaches a detached database. See "Detach" on page 1 for further information.

### Defragment

The Defragment action defragments the selected database.

Right-click Databases and select Defragment to open the Defragment Database dialog. Select the database you want to defragment and click OK.

You can defragment the , , or database. These databases are defragmented as part of the scheduled maintenance if 10% or more of the database is fragmented. See "Scheduled jobs in Windows Task Scheduler" on page 1 for more information.

### Detach

The Detach action detaches a database from SQL Server so that the existing database files can be copied, allowing the option to reattach alternate or default copies of these files if necessary.

To detach a database:

Stop all services.

Open the Detach Database dialog in one of the following ways:

Right-click Databases, select Detach, and select the database that you want to detach.

Right-click , or , and select Detach.

Click Clear to clear any existing connections to the database. Under Detach options, select whether or not you want to update statistics prior to detach.

Click OK to detach the database.

To reattach a database:

Right-click Databases then select Attach to open the Attach Database dialog.

Click the browse button to navigate to the database that you want to attach. Specify a name in the Attach as field.

Click OK.

Restart all services.

Note

Do not move the or databases unless absolutely necessary.

### Export Registry Setting

The Export Registry Setting action exports settings to a registry (.reg) file. This is useful if you need to set up client computers in a system where the primary server’s database settings (server instance name, database name, or password) are customized. After you export the settings to the registry (.reg) file, you can run that registry file on the client computer.

Right-click Databases and select Export Registry Setting to open the Database Registry Key Export dialog.

Type the path and filename for the file or click the browse button to specify the location for the saved the database registry key.

The directory ...\\config\cfg\ is the default save location for the exported database registry key.

Click OK.

### Modify Login

The Modify Login action changes the SQL Server password for the default login name ION.

Stop all services.

Right-click Databases then select Modify Login to open the Modify Login dialog.

Type your password in the Password field (this must be a SQL administrative password). Click OK.

From the Login Name dropdown list select ION if it is not already selected. Type the new password in the New Password and Confirm New Password fields. Click OK.

Restart the services.

### New ION Databases

The New ION Databases action creates a new, blank version of the database.

Right-click Databases and select New ION Databases to open the New Historical Database dialog.

Type a name for your new database.

Note

Do not name it “” as this is the default name for the existing ION database.

Click the browse button to specify a location for the database.

Click OK.

### SQL Editor

The SQL Editor action allows you to do the following:

Export database information for troubleshooting purposes.

Write custom queries that let you view whatever data you want.

Implement custom changes to the databases. For example, this allows you to execute a custom SQL script provided by .

Right-click Databases and select SQL Editor to open the SQL Editor dialog.

notice

loss of data

Do not make unauthorized changes in SQL or databases.

Only make database changes with the SQL Editor if you have advanced knowledge of SQL and databases.

Failure to follow these instructions can result in irreversible database changes.

Notes

When you open the SQL Editor, the following appears: “Any alterations made using the SQL Query Editor may be irreversible”. Click OK to continue or Cancel to cancel.

Select the appropriate database before you execute your SQL statement.

### Trim

The Trim action removes data from a database. If you select Show Archives, you can also perform a trim on archived databases.

notice

loss of data

Backup or archive data before trimming a database.

Failure to follow these instructions can result in permanent loss of data.

Right-click Databases, or and select Trim to open the Trim Database dialog.

Select the database you want to trim from the Database to trim list.

Under Trim Range, specify the date range of data you want to trim (for the database) or set the maximum data age in days (for the database).

For the database (or an archive), select the data types you want to trim (Data Records, Waveforms, Events) in the Data Types section. You can select any combination of data types to trim.

Click OK. A message appears to notify you that the selected data will be removed. Click Yes to continue or No to cancel.

### Update Statistics

The Update Statistics action recalculates statistics on numbers of rows and ranges of key values in the data provided. This information is used by the SQL Server to determine the most efficient way to access the base tables, which helps to improve the performance of distributed queries.

Right-click Databases and select Update Statistics to open the Update Statistics dialog.

Select the database in the list that you want to update and click OK.

### Upgrade Database

The Upgrade Database action upgrades the selected database with the latest database schema.

Right-click Databases and select Upgrade Databases to open the ION Database Upgrade dialog.

The installer automatically upgrades your databases with the new database schemas when you install on an existing server. If you install the latest version of the product on a different server so that you can manually copy older database files to the new computer, you can run this action on the older databases (that is, on the , , and databases, and archives) to upgrade them with the new schema.

Select the database in the list that you want to upgrade and click OK.