Sitecore 5.3 beta1 (or beta 060705 to be precise) is live on SDN5 and the word is out. Everyone reading the Sitecore blogs must have seen the really cool, sheer and 2007-ready Content Editor screenshots. True, it is an impressive stuff, but there must be more to new release than just rehauled Content Editor. I’ve been working with production builds lately and haven’t really had a chance to dive into 5.3. So I’m going to change that and blog at the same time.

After downloading your hot copy, there are things you notice before ever having a chance to play with Content Editor:

Running the .exe file gets you to new installation wizard. After providing a valid Sitecore license (old 5.x licenses work fine) you can pick database engine, installation folder and create new IIS site. Basically it does everything needed to get Sitecore instance up and running, asking minimum amount of questions.


Database selection screen unveils yet another change: new storage engine options. Sitecore 5.3 adds Microsoft SQL Server Express and SQLite support. Both are free file-based storages and last time I saw performance test results, they run faster than Firebird.

Another bit is that SQLite can successfully compete with SQL Express on read operations, which is what serving content is mostly about, while being slower on writes. I’ll check on test results to get back with some more details.

Overall, new installation wizard coupled with fast file-based storage options make deployment a lot easier. I've never used automatic installs previously, but the new one is a nice thing to have.


To wrap off the post, here are 5.3 recourses available:

SDN5:

• Download
• Release notes
• Installation guide

Blogs covering 5.3:

• Jakob Christensen
• Lars Fløe Nielsen
• Alex de Groot
• Peter Johansson