HQbird: Advanced FirebirdSQL

IBSurgeon HQbird is an advanced distribution of Firebird (v2.5 and 3.0 and 4.0) for enterprises with big databases: it is an enhanced, fully compatible, feature-rich distribution of FirebirdSQL that provides superior performance, reliability, and instrumentation.

You can use HQbird with existing Firebird databases without any change in the database structure or metadata, without backup/restore, triggers, etc. You can revert to standard Firebird at any time, without any changes or backup/restore, too.

Download trial version of HQbird now, and improve your Firebird in a few minutes.
HQbird Editions and Their Prices - Upgrades for HQbird
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Download trial version of HQbird now, and improve your Firebird in a few minutes.

Fast multi-thread sweep, backup, restore

HQbird Enterprise (since version 2020) implements multi-thread maintenance (sweep), backup, and restore operations. The format of backup files is 100% compatible with the community Firebird.

Backup - up to 5x times faster;
Restore - up to 2x time faster
Sweep - up to 6x time faster

Firebird 2.5 and Firebird 3.0 are supported. The actual acceleration depends on CPU, disk subsystem of the server, and structure of the database. Install HQbird Enterprise in the trial mode (up to 90 days) and check what results will be on your server!

High-performance native replication

HQbird Enterprise includes native replication to create fault-tolerant systems based on Firebird databases without backup/restore

Replicates databases with 1500+ connections
Asynchronous replication with 1-10 seconds delay,
Synchronous replication without delay,
No triggers or other changes in schema required
Automatic propagation of DDL changes,
Online re-initialization of replicas.

The only requirement is to have Primary/Unique keys for replicated tables. Want to try it now? Download and follow this instruction!

HQbird Enterprise also includes the recovery toolset to fix corrupted databases, corrupted backups and to undelete occasionally deleted records.

Encryption

HQbird Enterprise includes the encryption plugin for Firebird 3.0.4+ databases:

Strong AES256 encryption, Windows and Linux.
Low penalty on the performance (5-20%, depends on CPU and RAM).
Multi-thread client applications are supported.
Connections to various encrypted databases.

We provide full examples of client applications in Delphi, NET, Java, PHP. Also, it is possible to purchase separate licenses of Firebird Encryption Plugin Framework: per server and unlimited.

Performance optimization tools

HQbird includes the complete toolset to find and fix bad SQL queries, transactions' problems, and database structure issues. HQbird supports all Firebird profiling methods:

Tracing for Firebird 2.5 and 3.0: comprehensive performance reports
MON$ tables: MON$Logger performs sophisticated analysis of Firebird monitoring tables snapshots.
Gstat: IBAnalyst performs an analysis of the database structure statistics and provides recommendations on how to improve database performance.
Transactions analysis of Firebird transactions markers, by FBDataGuard and IBTM, with detection of long-running transactions and stuck transactions.

Also, HQbird contains a set of Firebird configuration files, optimized for better performance.

Cloud Backups, non-trivial backups schemes

HQbird supports all types of backups and their automation:

Verified full backup with gbak
Incremental backup with nbackup
Quick dump backup with nbackup
Cloud backup to several FTP/FTPS/SFTP servers
Scheduled restore jobs

HQbird implements all necessary Firebird maintenance procedures: sweep, test restore, indices statistics recalculation. Also, HQbird has support for VSS backup in virtual machines.

With HQbird, you will never lose or overlook an important backup, even if you have many databases in various locations.

Monitoring: 1 server or 100, all protected by HQbird

HQbird permanently monitors your Firebird database and server: more than 30 parameters are monitored to ensure the availability of your business data.
HQbird (all editions) supports HQbird Control Center - the 2nd level monitoring infrastructure, which enables monitoring of hundred of Firebird servers (Control Center is available as for customers with HQbird Subscription).

In the case of a problem, you’ll get an alert before things go bad.

Other features: performance improvements, silent installation, etc

Transparent authentication plugin for Execute Statement On External (ESOE)
- Plugin to allow trusted authentication of ESOE without password
Pool of Execute Statements On External (Firebird 2.5, 3.0)
- Speed up connections to external databases
- SQL commands to manage pool: change size, lifetime, clear the pool
RSA-UDR: sign data in BLOBs and varchars (3.0)
- Public/Private Keys generation
- Functions to calculate digest, sign, verify the signature
Pool of prepared statements (3.0)
- Useful for connections pools (.NET, PHP)
- To speed up frequent unprepared queries up to 8x times
- No changes in application sources/SQLs required
Speed-up heavy reports (up to 5x times) (3.0)
- Queries with many fields SELECT with GROUP BY, ORDER BY, etc can use REFETCH plan to gain up to 5x performance
- New parameter in firebird.conf to manage sorting behavior
- No changes in applications' sources/SQLs required
Silent installation with automatic registration - on Windows
Simplified upgrade of HQbird

Download trial version of HQbird now, and improve your Firebird in a few minutes.

More details about HQbird:

Questions?