Offline DB mode choice at startup

[Shaw_S]

Hi

We're using the SQL DB way of connecting. In some very rare cases, like a Disaster Recovery Plan test or an actual Disaster, the DB is unavailable.
When it's foreseen downtime, you can start the application in advance and select "Switch to Offline Mode". Would it be possible to have this cached (preferably encrypted & possibly but not necessarily read-only) local DB/xml/... file created proactively? This could be an option, if you prefer not to create this file by default, if you would prefer it not have an influence on application startup time for example..
An alternative we prefer to avoid, is people creating an unmanaged local connections file. At this moment we're kind of forced to leave the option enabled so people can work in case of DB downtime. But we're reluctant to pass on the license file to 300+ users for them to be able to use the local file option beyond the 30 day trial period...

At startup the application would thus detect that the DB is unavailable and give you the option to work offline. An initial startup to a live DB is obviously a prerequisite to be able to build the tree.
Currently the application simply times out and says: Connection could not be established. A connection to your current environment could not be established. Please select another one.

Thanks in advance

[DevOma]

There is an option in Settings=>Application : Always save offline data when ending the application in database mode

If you enable this option you will always have a local offline file available and can start the application even if the database is not available - and of course the password data is encrypted in this file!

So perhaps if you enable this you don't need your users to create local files themselves?!?

[Shaw_S]

Hi Oliver

That is exactly what we need!! Thank you very much!
It does greatly increase the time to exit the application though. Something to take into consideration for us...

Kind regards

Shaw

[Shaw_S]

We have extensively tested the "Automatically save offline data when ending application in database mode" option. Switching it on and off gives us the following impression:
Users complain that the time the application is unresponsive, while building the offline cache, when closing the application, is too long to be acceptable.
We tried to manually control when this offline cache can be created, by switching the option on and off. The offline cache seems to only be available for a limited time or a certain amount of application starts once the option is unselected. Then suddenly the option to start with "Connect environment in offline mode", disappears.

Would it be possible to add a button, like "Switch to Offline Mode", so users can manually trigger the build of an offline cache. That such a cache would be available for a longer time (not necessarily indefinitely, but it could be). Each time the button would be pressed, the offline cache would be overwritten with the current data.

[DevOma]

Can you tell me how big is the size of the offline.xml file when option is activated - you should find it under %UserProfile%\ASG-RemoteDeskop\11.0? Perhaps you have a huge count of logs and all data is stored into the file - because it should be only the time that you need to write down the file - data is still in cache :-) Perhaps we need some more options which data should be written?!?

[Shaw_S]

Hi Oliver

It's 9,5MB and there's 136.681 lines in it. Apparently it caches ALL folders, even the ones of other teams where my team has no access to...
I cleared all the logs which made it a 9,3MB file with 134.399 lines (not a big win here).

I recon we could win a lot of time if he would only cache the folders the user has access to... As he's making an unnecessary cache of (in our case) 32 other team's folders. If the time would be (more or less) x:33 that would be awesome!

Regards

Shaw

[Shaw_S]

Hi Oliver

Did you have the chance to look into this?

Regards

Shaw

[DevOma]

Yes it caches more than needed - we will try to optimize that for the next version….