What is Core Services

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Introduction to Hornbill Core Services

Hornbill Core Services form an integral part of Supportworks, in essence, they are slightly modified versions of three highly acclaimed open-source applications. The first of these provides all (or at least some) of the essential SQL-database facilities that Supportworks use. The second provides the HTTP (Web) facilities that Supportworks requires. The third provides the PHP run-time resources needed by Supportworks to support certain features such as SelfService, and the development resources necessary for customising these features. The core services are operationally transparent to the user and do not normally require any configuration.

Included in a Hornbill Core Services installation are not only the three core services themselves, but also a pair of inter-operational utility programs that between them allow you to change and replicate the database schema initially built during the Supportworks installation.

In summary, the major components of Hornbill Core Services are as follows:

  • Supportworks SQL server (SwSqlServer), based on MySQL Database Server
  • Supportworks Web server (SwHttpServer), based on the Apache HTTP Server
  • A PHP environment for the Apache HTTP Server
  • The Database Schema Editor, for specifying changes to the schema
  • The Database Configuration Tool, for actually performing the specified schema changes on the database

For ease of maintenance and upgrading, Hornbill Core Services are installed (and upgraded) separately to the specific Hornbill product with which they integrate. The installation order is important. For any intended new (or “clean”) installation, Hornbill Core Services must be installed before the Supportworks server is installed. Once the whole system has been installed, subsequent upgrades of the server software will generally not require any upgrade of Hornbill Core Services. Equally, should a new version of Hornbill Core Services become available, there would normally be no need to upgrade the server software at the same time.