Who should purchase the Universal Driver 4.7?

Multi-user applications written in OpenInsight versions prior to 9.0 or Arev 3.12 require the Universal Driver. If your application is based on OpenInsight 9 then there is no need to purchase the Universal Driver. The Universal Driver NUL (Network User License) is already included with OpenInsight 9 and later. The Universal Driver NUL edition is compatible with all existing database files but it is only forward compatible with the OpenInsight 9 development environment. For mixed environments with OpenInsight 9 and any prior Revelation Software development tool the for-purchase Universal Driver is required since it is compatible with all supported versions of the Revelation Software development tool. For a complete list of supported versions please refer to the Network Product Matrix.

Why should you purchase the Universal Driver?

If your application was developed in Arev 3.12 or OpenInsight versions prior to 9.0 the Universal Driver is required for multi-user access. The following points list the advantages of the Universal Driver compared to previous network drivers such as the All Networks Driver.

Protection from data corruption.

Data corruption can occur for a variety of reasons, including bad network cabling, power fluctuations, hardware errors, no record locking, or users aborting processes. Often it is impossible to predict or prevent such events. The Revelation Universal Driver protects you against data corruption when such events do occur by recognizing that an error occurred and notifying the user, while protecting the data table from incomplete transactions, virtually eliminating data corruption errors (Group Format Errors).

Increased speed performance.

The Revelation Network Products are designed to enable database activity to be off-loaded onto the file server. This architecture dramatically reduces the amount of network requests. The reduction of network requests translates to increased performance. Benchmarks show a dramatic performance increase on local area networks (LANs), and an even greater increase on wide area networks(WANs).

Reduced Downtime

Costs mount very quickly when your users can't use the system. The real cost of data corruption is the downtime created while the appropriate back-ups are found and restored. If the system can't be restored with a recent back-up, the information must be re-entered, taking additional precious resources.

Why should I upgrade to the Universal Driver 4.7?

Versions of the Universal Driver after 3.0 are compatible with all previous versions of Linear Hash files.  Also included with the Universal Driver 4.7 is a console application (the UD Manager) that allows you to manage record locks without having to stop the Linear Hash Service, as well as view the active connections to your applications.

What has changed from the Universal Driver 4.6?

Universal Driver Manager is now compatible with 64bit systems.

The ability to select and unlock multiple records from the Universal Driver Manager is now available. Previous versions allowed only one record to be selected during each unlock.

Server side install program now recognizes Arev 3.12 as a valid installation location.

What has changed from the Universal Driver 4.5?

NSIS replaces Install Shield as the installer.

UD 4.6 will now be offered in two versions: The free bundled version supplied with OpenInsight 9.0 and above network user licenses and the standard version to be used with OpenInsight 8.0.x and below.  The free bundled version will only work with OpenInsight 9.0 and above network user licenses; it will not function with versions of OpenInsight 8.0.x and below as well as Advanced Revelation.

The Universal Driver 4.6 will no longer support unlimited-length record keys.  Record keys can now be a maximum of 552 characters long.  Any keys that exceed this limit will now be "illegal" and applications will be unable to either read or write them.  The server event log will report Linear Hash error 1016 for this condition.  Since this will make the records unreadable, they will be treated as though there is a "group format error" (GFE) in any table that contains them, and so the Database Manager tool in OpenInsight release 9.1 to Verify LH has also been updated to report there "errors", and the "fix" option has been updated to copy them to a new table called DUMP_FIX_SAVE.

Another, more critical fix, is that currently, the "Fix GFEs" option on the Verify LH menu silently considers any records with keys greater than 50 characters long to be GFEs.  Anyone running the "Fix GFEs" option, either from Verify LH menu, will lose any records that have keys longer than 50 characters.  As a result of this issue, we are including with the Universal Driver 4.6 a RDK containing a FIX_LH routine.  This updated routine removes the "50-character-throwaway" functionality and replaces it with the "552-character-save" functionality.

What are some of the other great features of the Universal Driver?

        There is only one REVPARAM file no matter how many different subdirectories you have with .LK and .OV files.

        There is support for files larger than 4 gigabytes.

        There is support for large frame sizes up to 100K.

        You can 'hide' your .LK and .OV from your users.

        The LHVerify facility is integrated onto the server side, allowing much faster performance.

        Registry settings and REVPARAM file created automatically.      

What configurations does the Revelation Universal Driver 4.6 work with? 

Server                        Version Minimum

Windows                       64bit and 32bit versions of Server 2003 and Server 2008. Server 2012.

Novell                           Not available at this time

Linux                            Not available at this time

Will the Universal Driver work with Windows 95/98/NT workstations?

No, it will only work with workstations running XP and later.

Will the Universal Driver 4.7 work with Arev?

Yes, the Universal Driver will work with Arev 3.12 and OpenInsight 4.1.3 and above.  The Universal Driver NUL version will not work with Arev or OpenInsight versions prior to 9.

What is the pricing?

The price for a new install of the Universal Driver 4.7 is $2,635.00.

Upgrade pricing is as follows:

From Universal Driver 4.0 and Universal Driver 4.6 to Universal Driver 4.7 is free.

From Universal Driver 3.0 to Universal Driver 4.7 is $787.00.

From Revelation 2.1 Service to Universal Driver 4.7 is $1,095.00.

From Revelation 1.5 Service to Universal Driver 4.7 is $1,315.00.

Crossgrade from NLM to UD 4.7 is $1,430.00.

Documentation

Universal Driver 4.7 Readme 

Universal Driver 4.7 Installation Guide

Universal Driver 4.7 Upgrade Guide

Network Driver Update for Large Keys