Octopus Client is a Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 WinForm application written in C#.

For storing data we use a Microsoft SQL Database. It can be the old MSDE (free), the current SQL Express (free) or SQL Server (commercial).

For reports, we use the Crystal Reports technology.

If you want to know more about the software architecture you should take a look here : Octopus Software Architecture

MSDE Even if Octopus work great with MSDE, we recommend you to avoid using MSDE because it is not supported by Windows Vista. You should use SQL Server 2005 Express Edition instead.

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

.NET is a free technology provided by Microsoft for building applications running on Windows systems. It is very similar to the popular Java technology.

Many programming language are available in .NET, and we chosen C#. See OctopusSourceCode fore more informations about Octopus's source code.

Microsoft provides also the development tools for free (Visual Studio Express Editions)

If you are running Windows Vista you already have the .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Other else you should download and install the .NET Framework from Microsoft web site. (You can also update your computer using Windows Update)

Microsoft SQL Database

Microsoft provides several editions of their SQL Database from Compact Edition running on PDAs to Enterprise Edition for very large databases.

Octopus supports these editions :
-MSDE (free but now replaced by SQL Server 2005 Express Edition)
-SQL Server 2000 Editions
-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (free and recommended for starting with Octopus)
-SQL Server 2005 Workgroup, Standard & Enterprise editions.

Be Careful So we do not support : Oracle, MySQL, Sybase

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition limitations SQL Express is a great free database server. But it has some limitations you should be aware of: Supports only one CPU, but can be installed on any server (if your server has more processors, only one will be used by SQL Express) Will use 1 GB of your RAM (if your server has more RAM, only 1 GB will be used) Database size is limited to 4 GB For a normal usage of Octopus, these limitations are not blockers. And if you reach these limitations one day, you will be able to switch to the commercial version of SQL Server very easily.