Switching Connect Server to use an external MySQL Database

Author: Alex Banahene

There are multiple reasons why you may want to convert an existing install of OL Connect to use a separate external MySQL database. You may be doing so to increase performance, or to make use of an existing database server or just to use the most recent version of OL Connect. Whatever the reason, changing the database to an external MySQL database can be a straightforward swap.

In this how-to we will cover how to switch to a separate external MySQL database, assuming that you are using an existing MySQL database and are not storing documents in the database. If you are storing documents in your database or using a different database such as MS SQL, please contact our support service for further details.

Installing the My SQL database server

Let’s start with installing your new My SQL database server. Download the MySQL installer from dev.MySQL.com and follow the installation instructions to install the MySQL Server. During the installation, make note of your database server’s root password to use with OL Connect later.

You may want to install the MySQL Workbench alongside the server, as it has useful tools especially if you need to transfer content such as documents from your old MySQL server to your new one.

Once MySQL is installed, stop the OL Connect server, the OL Connect MySQL service and the OL Connect Workflow server.  You should then use the Windows Services app (services.msc ) to set the OL Connect My SQL service to a manual start.

Reconfiguring the OL Connect server

The next step is to configure OL Connect to use the external database. To do this open the Connect Server Configuration application and browse to the database configuration screen as shown below.

If you’ve installed the new MySQL database server on the same system, you should not have to do much more than put in the new root Password, as the IP address and port will be the same. If you’ve installed MySQL on a new server you will need to update the IP address (Hostname) and Port as well.
In all cases, test the connection to ensure you have communication. Then apply the changes.

Once these steps are complete, restart the OL Connect server service. It will recreate the Objectif Lune database tables in MySQL.
Then restart OL Connect Workflow. Make sure everything is as you expect it.

Finally, run SC delete from the cmd window to delete the old SQL services.