Very Computer

by **Jim Worde** » Sat, 08 Jan 2000 04:00:00

I'm so new to FM it will take me weeks of study just to know enough to sound
stupid. :-(

I've just been ask to support an existing FM 3 project and upgrade it to FMP
5. We have a small database accessed by 3-5 users and are currently running
on a Win95 peer to peer network but installation of a NT server is currently
underway.

It appears to me that what I need to accomplish this is a simgle copy of FMP
5 installed on the server along with MS IIS or something similar. All the
users would then have intranet web based access to the database.

A couple of questions (actually there are thousands but...)

1. Am I anywhere close to correct with the above?
2. Do the users need their own copies of FM or do they need anything
installed on their PCs other than the web browser?

Any help and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all in
advance.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Jim Worden
Prometheus Systems, Inc.
jworden at airmail dot net
===========================================================
Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
===========================================================
To reply by e-mail remove the "_SPAM_ME_NOT" from the reply address.
===========================================================

by **Paul Brunea** » Sat, 08 Jan 2000 04:00:00

Do you need to have internet access? If I were you, I would buy each
user a copy of FM 5 and use FM's built-in sharing instead of web-based
access.

Another question: Why are you upgrading?

PB

> I'm so new to FM it will take me weeks of study just to know enough to sound
> stupid. :-(

> I've just been ask to support an existing FM 3 project and upgrade it to FMP
> 5. We have a small database accessed by 3-5 users and are currently running
> on a Win95 peer to peer network but installation of a NT server is currently
> underway.

> It appears to me that what I need to accomplish this is a simgle copy of FMP
> 5 installed on the server along with MS IIS or something similar. All the
> users would then have intranet web based access to the database.

> A couple of questions (actually there are thousands but...)

> 1. Am I anywhere close to correct with the above?
> 2. Do the users need their own copies of FM or do they need anything
> installed on their PCs other than the web browser?

> Any help and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all in
> advance.

> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Worden
> Prometheus Systems, Inc.
> jworden at airmail dot net
> ===========================================================
> Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.
> -- Arthur C. Clarke
> ===========================================================
> To reply by e-mail remove the "_SPAM_ME_NOT" from the reply address.
> ===========================================================

by **Jim Worde** » Sat, 08 Jan 2000 04:00:00

I was told by the former support guy that FM3 has a problem with later
versions of Win9x. I'm not sure what the issue was (and he's no longer
available for comment) but I believe it have something to do with changes
made to NetBEUI causing slowdowns. He had tried to upgrade to 4.0 at one
time but it ran so slowly when multiple users were on-line that he had to
take it back down to FM3. By the time I came along they had already decided
to try to jump to 5.0 and asked me to make it work. Since I don't know what
the original problems were (or if they were real problems) and I have to
learn the darned thing anyway it seemed like a good time to make the leap
into the 21st century and go to 5.0.

To answer your first question, no. We really don't need internet access but
they're trying to avoid going out and buying a bunch of upgrades and new
copies. Somewhere they read that FMP5 would support up to 10 users and, from
what I've been able to see, that would require 1 copy running on the
intranet or 3-5 copies using the built-in sharing. I have to believe that
using the built-in sharing would be easier to set up and administer but my
time is apparently not worth as much as 4 or 5 copies of FM so... :-(

Quote:> Do you need to have internet access? If I were you, I would buy each
> user a copy of FM 5 and use FM's built-in sharing instead of web-based
> access.

> Another question: Why are you upgrading?

> PB

by **John Deviso** » Sun, 09 Jan 2000 04:00:00

With 3-5 users, if the database dosen't have more than 16 related files,
it's hard to justify using FMPro server at all. For less than the cost of
server, you can dedicate a cheap PC to a single copy of FileMaker Pro 4,
which will open and act as host to all the databases, and on which you can
simply run FMPro's own web server CGI. (As far as I know, there is no
connector between FileMaker Pro and IIS, unless you want to tangle with
ODBC). That single FileMaker Pro client will host 3-5 users fine with its
own built in sharing system over the protocol of your choice.

by **Paul E. Est** » Sun, 09 Jan 2000 04:00:00

In article

> I was told by the former support guy that FM3 has a problem with later
> versions of Win9x. I'm not sure what the issue was (and he's no longer
> available for comment) but I believe it have something to do with changes
> made to NetBEUI causing slowdowns. He had tried to upgrade to 4.0 at one
> time but it ran so slowly when multiple users were on-line that he had to
> take it back down to FM3. By the time I came along they had already decided
> to try to jump to 5.0 and asked me to make it work. Since I don't know what
> the original problems were (or if they were real problems) and I have to
> learn the darned thing anyway it seemed like a good time to make the leap
> into the 21st century and go to 5.0.

> To answer your first question, no. We really don't need internet access but
> they're trying to avoid going out and buying a bunch of upgrades and new
> copies. Somewhere they read that FMP5 would support up to 10 users and, from
> what I've been able to see, that would require 1 copy running on the
> intranet or 3-5 copies using the built-in sharing. I have to believe that
> using the built-in sharing would be easier to set up and administer but my
> time is apparently not worth as much as 4 or 5 copies of FM so... :-(

Get a copy try it with instant web publishing, you will want to use a port
other than 80 on the NT machine. Change the port to 591 in the web
companion preferences. If instant web publishing does not work for your
setup, get more copies of five and use peer to peer. You could also use a
mix of web and peer to peer. Ideally people who are adding records or need
better pereformance will use peer to peer, if someone is just looking up
data instant web publishing will work fine.

Paul E.

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