Intelligent Agent makes use of 2 types of database: Microsoft SQL Server for persistent data, and Redis for caching purposes. The Intelligent Agent Application communicates with the Microsoft SQL Server Instance (or cluster) and the Redis Node (or Replication Group); it does not interact with their underlying OS or hardware.

 

Intelligent Agent stores all persistent data within its Microsoft SQL Server database.

 

Data stored includes, but is not limited to:

 

If the Intelligent Agent Microsoft SQL Server database is not available, the Intelligent Agent Application will not be able to function.

 

 

It is recommended to deploy the Intelligent Agent database to a full SQL instance, however cloud SQL offerings can be utilised.

 

Deployment of Intelligent Agent on Microsoft SQL Server in Cloud Infrastructure requires some alternative steps during the installation and maintenance phases.

 

Intelligent Agent requires the Intelligent Agent database, child objects of the Intelligent Agent database, and the SQL Server's TempDB database to be configured as the same case insensitive collation. Intelligent Agent is tested on, and recommends using, a case-insensitive, accent-sensitive collation of Latin1_General_CI_AS (the Microsoft SQL Server default for non-US English culture environments).

 

Intelligent Agent supports the English (United Kingdom) and English (United States) localisation cultures. The localisation culture dictates the date format used in the data exchange between the Microsoft SQL Server and IIS website, among other things. This requires the Windows account of the requester (IIS website / service) and the SQL user account to have matching Culture date formats. Further information on the user accounts utilised by Intelligent Agent can be found in the Authentication section.

 

Intelligent Agent is compatible with SQL clusters in all configurations of SQL that result in the clustered database being presented as a single SQL connection string. We do not support having multiple SQL servers specified within a single connection string, as used in older round-robin style fail-over SQL systems.

 

During any SQL maintenance, if the Intelligent Agent Microsoft SQL Server database becomes unavailable, then the Intelligent Agent platform will not be able to function until service is restored.

 

 

Intelligent Agent stores temporary cached data within a Redis database to avoid excess load on the Microsoft SQL Server instance. Data can be obtained by the Intelligent Agent website faster and with a lower resource footprint from Redis than a Microsoft SQL Server database. This Redis data is transient, with persistence provided within Microsoft SQL Server.

 

Data cached includes, but is not limited to:

 

Redis is an open source in-memory database software product, and is utilised as an accompaniment to the Microsoft SQL Server database. Redis is deployed as a standalone infrastructure service that the Intelligent Agent Application interacts with via the Redis API.

 

The Intelligent Agent Application is tested with Redis running on the Linux Operating System. Versions 6.0 to 7.0 are currently supported.

 

 

Redis can be deployed in a redundant configuration using a Redis Replication master/replica(s) configuration, and the Redis Sentinel feature provides master/replica promotion. Details on configuring multiple Redis nodes and Redis Sentinel can be found in the Redis Redundancy (Sentinel) Configuration article.