SuperContainer vs FM12's new Container format

[Mr. Scott]

What can the folks at 360Works convey about the comparison of the new Container field features of FileMaker 12 versus SuperContainer?

• Drag and drop files
  
• Faster performance
  
  • Thumbnail generation
    

  [*] Remotely stored files (and, they can be individually encrypted)

  [*] Stream content without waiting for content to download

[bcooney]

As a SuperContainer and 360Email customer, I am very interested to see what FM12 means to me as well. With the 360 products, I am able to store attachments on the server and send multiples per email quite easily. From what I've seen with FM12, that is still not possible without at least 360Email's plugin.

Looking forward to 360work's reply.

[ooparah]

Hey all,

We have recently released a brief publication that details some of the differences between FileMaker 12 and SuperContainer. You can access this here:

http://www.360works.com/articles/detail/208

Regards,

[Russell Barlow]

We have recently released a brief publication that details some of the differences between FileMaker 12 and SuperContainer.

Regarding that documentation, you state that Filemaker 12 does not allow for using storage outside of the hosted database base directory. According to FM's documentation, that does not appear to be correct. Am I not understanding something correctly? Does remote storage locations from Filemaker 12 have to be Mounted Volumes? I did a quick test with a Starter Solution that was not hosted and I was able to access a network share not mounted. If someone doesn't have answer, I'll find time tonight to test on a hosted file. Still running on 11, so have to use my test environment at home for testing with hosted copy.

[bcooney]

Glad to see this. Honestly, the "binding" of FM12's containers with the file if you serve the file using FMS is a problem for us, and imho, a reason to stay with SC.

The other issue I have is using FM12's containers with your Email Plugin. Won't I have difficulties attaching stored PDFs, for example? Perhaps not, and it's just a different path in EmailAttachFile.

[Valentin]

UPDATE:

In our feature comparison we're comparing against 'enhanced' container field's behavior when .fmp12 files are hosted.

In single user mode, i.e. using FileMaker Pro, it is possible to specify a network location. The network location still gets mounted explicitly or implicitly; on Windows a UNC path notation can be used in, which case, current users credentials are used to access/mount that network location, on Mac the location has to be mounted by the user or mounted automatically using an Open Directory setting, in both cases the network location is mounted to folder in /Volumes/ folder.

[Justin Close]

I had this same question about doing external storage and network storage. We are running a hosted solution, but would like to use a network device for storage. It SEEMS like it would be possible from the documentation, but we haven't been successfull yet. Everytime we try to configure a new base directory at this network location, it prefixes what we typed in with "[hosted location]".

Now, I am running into further issues when trying to test this on a local system copy. I am able to create what look like valid paths (to me at least) but it keeps telling me my path is invalid. I set up a share on our server and I am trying to use that as a dummy 'network storage' location, just to try and get this thing to work. But, I have to admit, I am rather new to the Mac world and am uncertain about setting up the share in the first place, let alone creating the path. Here is the path I have:

\\server.name.com\MServer\TestShareFM12\

(I have tried both IP and name, both without luck. The above path is: server name, share name (I think), folder name. Obviously not too sure about the share name; I mentioned I was new to the Mac way of doing things. )

I can browse to the path/share on the server via Finder from my local system, so the connection is valid, it is just a matter of how I am referring to it.

Any advice and remedial education would be appreciated.

Thanks,

C

[didjeridude]

Here is the path I have:

server.name.comMServerTestShareFM12

You might try forward slashes in your Mac pathname (unless you did and what you typed above was just habit . . .)

[Justin Close]

No, not habit; the backslashes are what FM 12 uses in its example string, so that is what I used.

[bsg]

One thing you should add to your comparison... When FileMaker Server backs up the FileMaker file it also backs up all the remote container content. This is a BAD thing. So if you have a terrabyte of remote container data, you will need another terrabyte to store its' backup even though those files are static. Although future backups will use hard links the first backup still needs to be there. There should be a way to turn that off remote container backups. May have to go with the server command line pause and xcopy like I was doing back in FileMaker Server 3 days:(

[bcooney]

But wouldn't you want a backup of the remote container files?

[bsg]

Not at all. FileMaker backup is helpful in that it prevents people from backing up live FileMaker files that will be corrupted if you go live with them. This is not the case with remote container files. (By backup I mean FileMaker's backup, not "backup" in general)

[bcooney]

Well, just saying that a backup is a backup and the storage space required is the same, FM handling the backup or not. Right? So, you're gonna need that terabyte of hard disk space either way, afaik.

[bsg]

A "backup is a backup"? For a network file server would you just back it up to another place on the same server? I don't see the point of that. I backup static files offsite or using a backup hardware appliance, no need to copy them to another drive on the same server. This is what 3rd party backup software is for, not FileMaker Server. Also by having FileMaker Server do that backup it slows down the entire backup, for example I just tested 1.2 million remote container files and it took 8 hours for FileMaker backup to complete. There is no need for FileMaker Server to backup these files, there should be an option to shut that off.

[bcooney]

"there should be an option to shut that off." And in FMS14 there is.

[Wim Decorte]

As long as the knock-on effect is understood:

- the RC data will not be included in the progressive backups

- the RC data will not be included in any Primary-to-Standby sync

 

Very often the need to exclude the RC folders comes from a misconception on how FMS does backups.  With its hard-linking it does not spend time or disk space on RC data that has not changed since the last backup...  It is very efficient that way.