By default, GRIA uses HSQLDB (Hypersonic) as its database management system for storing the services' state information in. For most users Hypersonic will be a good choice as it requires no configuration or management. Some users may want to use a more heavy-weight RDBMS such as MySQL, Oracle etc. GRIA uses the Hibernate object/relational persistence system, so switching from one RDBMS to another is made a lot easier.

Currently we have tested GRIA with MySQL and PostgreSQL. GRIA has not been tested on other RDBMS such as Oracle, DB2 or MS SQL Server but these are available through Hibernate and may work.

To use a GRIA package with an alternative database, the RDBMS must be installed, the database created and the hibernate.properties file for the GRIA package (found in the service's configuration directory) must be edited accordingly.

To improve database performance, you may also wish to enable database connection pooling. The steps required to do this are detailed in the connection pooling page.