Fm Pro Unlimited co-existing with other major applications

[evan_panagiotopoulos]

We have a web and e-mail server (NT operating system) and I am wondering if Unlimited can co-exist with these applications.

Thanks.

Evan Panagiotopoulos

[Vaughan]

FMP will perform best on a dedicated machine. Highly recommended.

If used on the same machine as the web server, FMP's Web Companion will create a port conflict as both try to use port 80. Web Companion can be changed to another port (port 591 is reserved for FMP) but all http calls to the FMP databases will need to specify the new port number in the url.

[Anatoli]

We are running exactly that setup without any problems. But check your Task manager often for possible slowdowns due to heavy load.

[liebi]

I dont have the exact same problem, but something related:

We have a powerful Server (2*PIII800, RAID5, 512MBRAM) and would like to run FMP Server(5.5) and FMP Unlimited(5.5) on the this machine. We were thinking to install Apache for HTTP access on a separate machine. I was told that this kind of setup would work under NT4, but that under Win2K performance would be intolerably slow.

Could any of you confirm this? I am a bit reluctant to purchase another machine ... and wonder if this could be a configuration issue.

[Kurt Knippel]

Never EVER never run a database server application and a client application on the same machine at the same time. Now matter how powerful the server is, this is a sure way to drag performance and security to the bottom. Run Unlimited in your web server if you must, but I run it on a dedicated machine.

The cost of the additional client machine will pale in comparison to the performance and support costs of any other solution.

[OMamed]

Newbie here... I am running IIS on NT4 with FMServer and my databases on one server. In order to make the databases available to the web, I was going to run the WSC (Web Server Connector) on this same server. Should it be run on another machine? Why? Am I still missing a part of the picture? I've read the documentation and I'm still confused! Thanks for any help.

[Kurt Knippel]

The way in which it should be setup is as follows.

ServerOne - WinNT, Filemaker Server, Filemaker Databases

ServerTwo - WinNT, IIS, whaterver other web software as needed.

WorkstationOne - WinNT/98, Filemaker Unlimited

In general you should NEVER run any other software on you database server, regardless of the specific software.

[liebi]

Thanks for your advice Kurt.

I wonder: If I follow your suggestions, I arrive at the conclusion that something with the way FM handles ressources seems to be seriously flawed. I can easily run MS SQL and IIS together on our machine and connect them via asp pages - without any visible performance problems. Running FMP Server and Unlimited and using the incorporated Web-Server is essentially the same setup - it seems strange that Filemaker seems more demanding than MS SQL and IIS :

Have you (or anyone else) tested this?

[Kurt Knippel]

This is nothing to do with Filemaker itself.

Yes you CAN do everything that you said. However what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do are two totally different things.

I would NEVER setup anything other than WinNT and SQL Server on a single machine. I have had clients that tried and they always complained about performance issues with the databases. Surprisingly after I reinstalled with just NT and SQL Server they stopped complaining.

As to running Filemaker Server and Unlimited on the same machine is that Unlimited is a CLIENT version of Filemaker and in no case should a client and a server of the same database be running on the same machine at the same time. This is like running SQL Server and Access both accessing the same databases at the same time, this will drag you way down.

Basically the time that we have spent discussing this issue would have paid for the additional machines for running the applications, and this is why I always advise my client to use as many seperate machines as possible. There is just no reason not to.

P.S. I should suffix this by saying that I do not recommend Server-class machines for all of this stuff. The database server and web server should generally be server class machines, but Filemaker Unlimited runs just fine on a workstation class machine or even on your web server if NECESSARY. I generally will recommend machines based on what they will be used for.

P.S.S. Currently we have ONE server class machine which is our file server and 5 workstation-class machines as database servers. The machines are optomized to running Filemaker Server, but aside from additional RAM, are right off the shelf systems. Cost use somewhere around $1200 each.

[ November 28, 2001: Message edited by: CaptKurt ]