Deployment

One size does not fit all. Different applications have different workloads and processing demands on the database. The c‑treeACE database engine is designed to deliver the highest degree of performance, scalability, and data integrity for your applications. Whether you need an engine to power a desktop application supporting a limited feature-set and a handful of users, or a more sophisticated enterprise-class engine supporting thousands of users and demanding throughput, FairCom has a solution that fits your needs.

FairCom offers three editions of the c‑treeACE Server—Essential, Evolve, and Enterprise. FairCom empowers you to select the edition of the database engine that best aligns with the business and technical requirements of your application and your target market.

Selecting the Right Edition

There are some important dimensions to consider when selecting the right edition: the end-user’s operating environment, the feature set needed for the application, and your target usage.

Operating Environment

The hardware resources utilized for each edition of the c‑treeACE Server are different. Thus, you need to consider the requirements of your application (e.g., CPU usage, database size, or cache limits) when determining the c‑treeACE Server edition to select.

As shown in the table below, each c‑treeACE edition—Essential, Evolve, and Enterprise—supports a different set of features. A basic Essential server supports a core set of features, but none of the advanced features demanded by a more sophisticated application, which would be better served by all of the advanced features in the Enterprise server.

The c‑treeAMS line is available starting with the Evolve edition.

The target usage of your application is also a consideration when determining the c‑treeACE Server edition to use. Here are some questions to consider while you evaluate the table below:

• Are you building an in-house application or are you an ISV?
• Are you shipping to small or larger end users?
• Are you deploying into an on-premise, hosted, or SaaS environment?

Depending on the edition, c‑treeACE is priced using either a per-user or per-core basis. Regardless of the c‑treeACE edition you choose, you must execute a signed agreement before any distribution or commercial/production use. Pricing is an important component of this stage and we work closely with our partners to understand their needs to find the appropriate price point and deployment model that meets their needs. If you’re ready to talk with us about pricing fit to your needs, please contact us.

FairCom has a number of distribution models that vary somewhat depending upon which FairCom operational model you’ve selected for your application. While you can purchase our standard c‑treeACE Server licenses “off-the-shelf” (by ordering them from FairCom and having us deliver a server license, license authorization file, and server installer you can provide to your end-users), a duplication and distribution agreement is the way to go if any of the following is true:

• You’re an ISV and plan to deploy a significant volume of servers
• You want to tightly integrate the servers into your solution by including them in your installer, on your physical media, or as part of a download
• You want to umbrella the server licensing in your own software license
• You plan to deploy one of our custom servers, bound servers, or server .dll/.so models
• You want to earn volume discounts
• You have a custom licensing need that doesn’t match FairCom’s standard user or CPU core counting

Because FairCom technology is incorporated into a wide range of applications, we are very flexible when it comes to licensing. We work closely with our partners to understand their needs and try to develop a deployment model that meets their needs.

It should be noted that regardless of the operational model you choose (standalone, client/server, custom server, etc.) you must execute a signed agreement before any distribution.

If you are using our standard c‑treeACE Servers for your deployment and only require a small number of servers, you can execute a c‑treeACE Client Deployment amendment (which gives you the right to embed and deploy the client-side components of c‑treeACE ) and purchase c‑treeACE server licenses “off-the-shelf” by ordering them from FairCom as needed.

For standalone deployments, there is a simple two-page c‑treeACE Standalone Deployment Amendment, an amendment to the shrink-wrap development license that allows you to purchase blocks of executables to meet your deployment needs.

FairCom offers a variety of server licenses to meet the specific needs of customers. Each server is licensed on a per instance basis. The types of licenses include:

• Production Licenses
  • Intended for commercial applications that you are developing and plan to distribute to either individuals or other companies
  • Also intended for applications that you are developing and plan to distribute within your own company
• Development Licenses
  • Intended for the programmers in your company who are writing code and using a c‑treeACE API
• Test/QA Licenses
  • Intended for the testing, quality assurance, and other non-production use by either the company developing the application or (for ISVs) the end-user company running the production environment
• Other Special-Use Licenses
  • Contact FairCom about possible licenses for educational use, non-profits, and personal use

If you are considering an advanced implementation that falls outside of the bounds of our standard license, or you are concerned that your implementation may violate the terms of our standard license, please contact a member of our business development team. In many cases, we are able to write amended agreements with balanced costs to allow developers to create these types of applications.