Installation (StreamInsight)

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This topic describes the hardware and software requirements for Microsoft StreamInsight. It also describes how to install and uninstall StreamInsight, and StreamInsight-related samples and documentation.

An installation of StreamInsight consists of the following main elements:

  • The platform libraries in the form of a set of DLLs

  • The documentation and Readme file

  • The StreamInsight host, optionally registered as a Windows Service

  • The StreamInsight Event Flow Debugger tool

  • The SQL CE installation package (required for StreamInsight servers that use the SQL CE-based metadata store)

Hardware and Software Requirements

StreamInsight has the following hardware requirements:

  • Recommended: 2.2 GHz or faster CPU, 1024 MB or more of RAM

  • Minimum: 1.6 GHz CPU, 384 MB of RAM

StreamInsight is supported on the following operating systems:

  • Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later (x86 and x64)

  • Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or later (x86 and x64)

  • Windows Server 2003 R2 or later (x86 and x64)

  • Windows Vista (x86 and x64)

  • Windows Server 2008 or later (x86 and x64)

  • Windows 7 (x86 and x64)

Installing StreamInsight

Prerequisites

Before you install StreamInsight, the following prerequisites must be met:

  • You have administrative privileges on the computer.

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (full package) is installed. (Microsoft .NET Compact Framework is not supported.)

  • To install an edition of StreamInsight (StreamInsight.msi) other than the Evaluation edition, you must have a valid Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (not SQL Server 2008) product key. The product key determines the scalability capacity (which, in turn, determines the event rate per second) available to StreamInsight. Note that an instance of SQL Server 2008 R2 associated with the product key does not need to be installed on the computer.

You can find announcements of newer versions of StreamInsight that are available for download on the StreamInsight team blog.

To install StreamInsight

  1. To run the StreamInsight.msi, either open the StreamInsight folder on the SQL Server 2008 R2 media or go to the Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight download site.

  2. On the Welcome to the Installation Wizard for StreamInsight 1.2 page, click Next.

  3. On the License Agreement page, read the license agreement, and then select the check box to accept the license terms and conditions.

  4. On the Registration Information page, enter your name and company name.

  5. On the Instance Configuration page, specify the instance to install.

    StreamInsight allows multiple versions to be installed side-by-side onn the same computer. Each version that is installed supports multiple instances. Both the version and the instance name are used to identify installation directories and registry keys for each instance of StreamInsight. You must also provide the instance name when you connect to a StreamInsight server. The grid that is displayed during setup of a particular version shows any existing instances for that version that are already installed on the computer where Setup is running.

    An instance name must be unique across all installed versions of StreamInsight. For example, assume that StreamInsight 1.0 is installed on the computer, with instances Instance1 and Instance2. If you install StreamInsight 1.2 on the same computer, you have to provide difference instance names – for example, Instance3 and Instance4. Instance names are not case sensitive. The value must meet the following requirements:

    • The name cannot exceed 64 characters.

    • The first character in the instance name must be a letter. Acceptable letters are those defined by the Unicode Standard 2.0. These include Latin characters a-z, A-Z, and letter characters from other languages.

    • Subsequent characters can be letters defined by the Unicode Standard 2.0, decimal numbers from Basic Latin or other national scripts, the dollar sign ($), or an underscore (_).

    • Embedded spaces or other special characters are not allowed in instance names. The backslash (\), comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), single quote ('), ampersand (&), and at sign (@) are also not allowed.

  6. On the Product Key page, choose the type of StreamInsight edition to install.

    • Select Choose Evaluation Edition to install an evaluation edition of StreamInsight. The Evaluation edition installation is activated with a 180-day expiration. 

    • Select Enter the product key and enter a valid SQL Server 2008 R2 product key from the Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity label or product packaging to install either the Standard or Premium edition of StreamInsight. The capabilities available to StreamInsight depend on the edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 associated with the Product Key. The following table identifies the product capabilities of StreamInsight that are available given the edition of SQL Server 2008 R2. Note that an instance of SQL Server 2008 R2 associated with the product key does not need to be installed on the computer.

      StreamInsight Capabilities

      Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions

      Standard

      Standard

      Enterprise

      Web

      Premium

      Datacenter

      Developer

      Evaluation

      StreamInsight Standard and Premium have different characteristics regarding event rates and latency. StreamInsight Standard is targeted at StreamInsight installations where thousands of events need to be processed per second and latency requirements are in the order of seconds. StreamInsight Premium is well suited for installations that require processing of ten thousand or more events per second with sub-second latency. Note that the actual performance characteristics of a StreamInsight application also depend on other factors including the hardware environment in which StreamInsight is used and the queries and adapters that are being used for the StreamInsight application. For more information, see Choosing a StreamInsight Edition.

  7. On the Instance Configuration page you can specify StreamInsight service and group settings.

    Select the checkbox to Create a StreamInsight Host Windows service for the instance of StreamInsight. When selected, the following changes are implemented:

    • The Windows NetworkService account is used as the login account for the service. Users with administrative privileges can change the login account for the service after Setup is complete.

    • An XML configuration file for the service is created. The typical installation location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\Host\<instance_name>. This configuration file contains server-specific parameters such as the type of metadata store as well as Windows Communication Foundation-specific parameters. If, for example, the StreamInsight server URI of the service instance must be modified, the configuration file must be edited by a user with administrative privileges.

    Clear the checkbox if you do not wish to register the instance as a Windows service.

    Select the checkbox to Add the current user to the StreamInsight Users group. Members of this group have permission to connect to the management service endpoint for the instance.

  8. On the Ready to Install page, click Install.

  9. Select the option to display the readme file.

  10. Install the version of SQL Server Compact Edition from the .msi file that is included with the StreamInsight installation files.

  11. To enable event recording in the StreamInsight Event Flow Debugger on Windows Vista and higher, add the current user to the Performance Log Users group.

StreamInsight Setup installs the following files.

Files

Typical Installation location

Microsoft.ComplexEventProcessing DLLs*

StreamInsightDumper

C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\Bin

StreamInsight documentation

C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\Documentation\<LanguageFolder>

Microsoft StreamInsight server executable (StreamInsightHost)

Microsoft StreamInsight server executable configuration file (StreamInsightHost.exe.config)

C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\Host

C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\Host\<InstanceName>

Microsoft StreamInsight license

C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\license\<LanguageFolder>

SQL Server Compact Edition MSI

C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\Redist

Microsoft StreamInsight Event Flow Debugger

Note: Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 only support using this tool to look at diagnostic views.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2\Tools

* The installation process registers the Microsoft.ComplexEventProcessing DLLs in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

StreamInsight Users Group

The installation process creates a user group, named according to the instance name. For an instance named "MyInstance", the user group is named "StreamInsightUsers$MyInstance". Only users in this group can connect to a published StreamInsight server. For more information about publishing a server, see Publishing and Connecting to the StreamInsight Server.

If the checkbox to add the current user to the StreamInsight Users group is not selected during Setup, the group will be empty after the Setup process has completed. Only users with administrative privileges can populate the group.

If a user is logged in while the account is being added to the group, the user must log off and then log on again in order for the group membership to become effective. Users that are not members of this group will receive "access denied" errors when attempting to connect to the server’s Web service endpoint in the Event Flow Debugger and other client programs.

Performance Log Users Group

In order to be able to use the Event Flow Debugger, the user must be part of the Windows performance log users group. This enables the user to collect traces outside the debugger using trace.cmd, or record events from a query while operating within the debugger. See the Windows Management and Operations section for the steps on how to do this.

To Install the StreamInsight Client

You can choose to install only the StreamInsight client. This is useful when a client application must connect to a StreamInsight server running on a different machine. Installing the client copies only the client-side libraries to the computer and does not require a SQL Server 2008 R2 product key.

  1. To run the StreamInsightClient.msi, either open the StreamInsight folder on the SQL Server 2008 R2 media or go to the Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight download site.

  2. On the Welcome to the Installation Wizard for StreamInsight 1.2 page, click Next.

  3. On the License Agreement page, read the license agreement, and then select the check box to accept the license terms and conditions.

  4. On the Registration Information page, enter your name and company name.

  5. On the Ready to Install page, click Install.

Command Line Properties and Unattended Installation

You can use the following properties on the command line to provide installation or removal settings for StreamInsight. Properties are defined using the syntax PROPERTY=VALUE. The following table lists the public property names and their descriptions. Property names and values are case sensitive. Note that all property names are upper case.

Property Name

Applies to

Description

PRODUCTKEY

Optional

Server installation

The SQL Server 2008 R2 product key required for installing StreamInsight.

Enter a valid product key from the Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity label or product packaging. The product key "00000-00000-00000-00000-00000" defines the Evaluation edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 and is the default value.

INSTANCENAME

Optional

Server installation or removal

The name of the StreamInsight instance to be installed or removed. The default value is Default.

CREATESERVICE

Optional

Server installation

Register the instance of StreamInsight is registered as a Windows service.

Valid values:

1 = Register the instance as a Windows service (the default value).

0 = Do not register the instance.

ADDTOUSERSGROUP

Optional

Server installation

Add the current user to the StreamInsightUsers$<instance> group.

Valid values:

1 = Add the user to the group.

0 = Do not add the user to the group.

IACCEPTLICENSETERMS

Required

Server and client installation

Accept the license terms and agreements. Specifying NO cancels the installation.

Valid values:

YES

NO

You can use these properties to perform an unattended or quiet installation of StreamInsight. You must run the command prompt application as administrator.

The following command line performs a quiet installation of the default instance using the Evaluation Edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 for the product key. 

StreamInsight.msi /quiet /log log.txt IACCEPTLICENSETERMS=YES PRODUCTKEY=00000-00000-00000-00000-00000 INSTANCENAME=Default CREATESERVICE=1

The following command line performs a quiet installation of the client libraries.

StreamInsightClient.msi /quiet /log log.txt IACCEPTLICENSETERMS=YES

Installing a New Version of StreamInsight

When you install a new version of StreamInsight, the new version is installed side-by-side with previously installed versions. Applications and libraries that were compiled against previous versions continue to run without modification. After installing a new version of StreamInsight, you will observe the following changes on your computer:

  • There is a new entry in the Windows “Programs and Features” list for the new version.

  • There is a new folder in the file system for the new version. For example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2.

  • There is a new entry in the “All Programs” menu for the new version. For example, “Microsoft StreamInsight 1.2”.

If you have StreamInsight installed on a computer in two or more different languages, and you install a new version for one of the languages, then you must also install the new version for the other languages. Otherwise, messages will revert to English as the default language for those languages for which the latest version is not installed.

For additional information, see “StreamInsight Versions” in Programming Considerations.

StreamInsight Samples and Documentation

StreamInsight provides product documentation as part of the product installation. The documentation is contained in a .chm file. Updates to the documentation might be made periodically. You can check for updated documentation at the Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight download site, or view the current documentation from MSDN.

Samples are available from StreamInsight Samples.

Repairing StreamInsight

You can repair an instance of StreamInsight or the StreamInsight client by running the appropriate StreamInsight Setup MSI. From Program Maintenance, select Repair. This option fixes missing or corrupted files, shortcuts and registry entries.

Removing StreamInsight

You can remove one or more instances of StreamInsight or the StreamInsight client by using Programs and Features in Control Panel or by running the appropriate StreamInsight Setup MSI. The StreamInsight files and folders for the specified instance are deleted, and the StreamInsight DLLs are removed from the GAC when the last instance is removed. Note that only the 64-bit edition of the StreamInsight Setup MSI will allow you to remove 64-bit instances.

Command Line Properties for Removing StreamInsight

Property Name

Applies to

Description

REMOVEINSTANCE

Required

Server removal

Remove the specified instance of StreamInsight.

Valid values:

1

REMOVE

Required

Server and client removal

Remove the client libraries.

Valid values:

ALL

The following command line removes the default instance.

StreamInsight.msi /quiet /log log.txt INSTANCENAME=Default REMOVEINSTANCE=1

When you remove the last instance of the StreamInsight server, then the server software itself is also removed.

The following command line removes the client libraries.

StreamInsightClient.msi /quiet /log log.txt REMOVE=ALL

See Also

Concepts

Overview (StreamInsight)

Change History

Updated content

Added the IACCEPTLICENSETERMS property to the list of unattended installation properties.

Updated the selections available from the Instance Configuration page.

Added examples of performing a quiet installation of the client libraries and performing a quiet removal of all instances of StreamInsight.