Install SQL Server

Already have SQL Server? If your organisation already has SQL Server 2016 or later running (Express, Standard, or Enterprise), you can use that. You do not need to install a new instance — just make sure it meets the requirements below and skip ahead to Install Primentra.

What is SQL Server? SQL Server is Microsoft's relational database. Primentra uses it to store everything: your models, entities, attributes, all master data rows, user permissions, and the full audit trail. All business logic runs inside the database as stored procedures — the API server is just a thin pass-through layer.

Why SQL Server 2016+? Primentra uses modern SQL features that are only available in SQL Server 2016 and later: CREATE OR ALTER (atomic procedure updates), OPENJSON (JSON parameter parsing), and FOR JSON PATH (JSON result formatting). Older versions will not work.

Which edition? The free Express edition works well for most deployments and supports databases up to 10 GB. For larger datasets, use Standard or Enterprise.

Installation:

1. Download SQL Server 2019 or later from Microsoft
2. During installation, enable Database Engine Services
3. Choose Mixed Mode Authentication (SQL Server + Windows) — Primentra's service account uses SQL authentication
4. Note the instance name (default: MSSQLSERVER, or a named instance like SQLEXPRESS)

After installation, verify these settings:

• The SQL Server service is running
• TCP/IP is enabled in SQL Server Configuration Manager under Network Configuration — Primentra connects over the network protocol, not named pipes
• The SQL Server Browser service is running — this is required for the application to find named instances (like SQLEXPRESS)

Optional: Enable Full-Text Search

Full-Text Search is not required — Primentra works fine without it. When enabled, it makes search up to 170x faster on large datasets by using indexed word lookups instead of scanning every row. On datasets under 10,000 rows the difference is negligible.

During a new SQL Server installation: On the Feature Selection screen, check Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search under Database Engine Services. Primentra creates the required indexes automatically when you run Setup Database.

On an existing SQL Server without Full-Text Search:

1. Run the SQL Server Installation Center (from the Start menu or the original installer)
2. Click New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation
3. On the Installation Type screen, select Add features to an existing instance
4. Select your instance and check Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search
5. Complete the wizard — no restart is usually required

Warning — SQL Server Agent: The installer may stop the SQL Server Agent service and not restart it afterwards. Verify it is still running in Services (services.msc) if you rely on scheduled jobs.

Important: After installation, the service SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher is set to Manual by default. Change it to Automatic in Services (services.msc) so it starts after a reboot.

How it works:

Full-Text Search creates a special index that breaks text into individual words (tokens). Instead of scanning every character in every row, SQL Server looks up complete words in this index — similar to a book index vs. reading every page.

• LIKE '%amsterdam%' → scans all 7 million EntityValues rows (slow)
• CONTAINS(TextValue, 'amsterdam') → looks up the word in the Full-Text index (fast)

Real-world benchmark (525,000 rows + 7.1 million attribute values):

Verify FTS is working:

Go to General Settings → Connection to see the Full-Text Search status panel — it shows 4 checks: feature installed, indexes created, queries working, and Windows service running. You can also run this query in SSMS:

SELECT FULLTEXTSERVICEPROPERTY('IsFullTextInstalled')

A result of 1 means Full-Text Search is installed. A result of 0 means it needs to be added.

Limitations:

• Prefix matching only: "amster" finds "Amsterdam", but "mster" does not
• Index updates are asynchronous — newly inserted data may take a few seconds to become searchable
• Requires additional disk space for the Full-Text index catalog