The first hour with a platform is the one that decides whether it is trusted. Historically that hour meant hand-editing a configuration file, running a create command, and finding out from a stack trace whether the database was reachable. This release rebuilds that path: the tool asks what it needs, tests what it was told, and shows what it is about to do before it does it.
Getting a system built
- A guided wizard. Setup runs as a guided terminal wizard with prefilled prompts and a build screen that reports progress, instead of a sequence of commands whose order has to be known in advance.
- Connections tested before they are saved. The connection editor detects the current configuration, tests it, offers a fix, saves it and reconnects — and routes the operator by the state the system is actually in.
- Missing arguments are asked for. A required argument that was not supplied is prompted for rather than causing a usage error.
- Create refuses twice. A lifecycle gate makes the create operation refuse to run against a system that has already been created.
- A boot preflight. A verify step checks the conditions a successful start depends on before the start is attempted.
Upgrades that are inspected before they run
- List before apply. The upgrade command lists the pending conversions and the path they will take, so what an upgrade will change is read before it is authorised.
- Stamp a fresh build. A newly built system is stamped at the current conversion level, so a fresh install does not replay a history it never had.
- Skip a blocker. A failing conversion is skipped deliberately, from the command line or the interface, so one bad step does not strand the whole upgrade.
- Load status. A status command compares the rows the dictionary expected to load against the rows actually in the table, so a partial load is detected rather than assumed away.
An administration console, not a config file
- Browse and edit in place. An interactive console browses the configuration data as a typed record form, with pick-lists for referenced values, insert and delete, a live filter over the table list, and a refresh after every change.
- Structure as a tree. Cluster and server hierarchy is presented as a tree, with create shortcuts for servers, databases and users.
- The file, read-only. The configuration file remains viewable from the console, so what the tool wrote is checkable against what was intended.
The command-line interface is unchanged for scripted installs; the wizard and the console are additional entry points onto the same operations, for the cases where a person is doing it by hand.