sharing DB via web !AND! lan-TCP ...

[Harald]

... is this possible at the same time?

Hello,

I am thinking about using such a design: abot 30 users should gain access to some basic information and edit functions over http (web compagnion) and about 5 users are sharing the same DB in a LAN enviroment - what tricky things have to be considered??

Greetings Harald

[Garry Claridge]

The only problem would be that FM only allows 10 different IP addresses to have http access in a 12 hour period. You would need FM Unlimited to have more.

All the best.

Garry

[Kurt Knippel]

You'll need Filemaker Server and 5 licenses for Filemaker Pro for the LAN users, then a copy of Filemaker Unlimited for the web users. Both the Filemaker Pro clients and Filemaker Unlimited will connect to Filemaker Server for DB access. This will give you good performance, stability and security.

Also make sure that Filemaker Server is on its own dedicated machine, Filemaker Unlimited can be on the web server, but I would also put it on its own machine.

[Garry Claridge]

Re: You'll need

You do not NEED all that!

Garry

[Harald]

What do I need then??

I also have to mention that I am still using fm 4.1 with 10 licenses... . Therefore I thought to provide the DB via web (only one file) AND via direct client access (about 4 relational files). So is it really necessary to use the server-SW?

Again: what do you mean when you say that all of the things ARE necessary (captkurt) or are not (garrycl)

Greetings Harald

[jasonwood]

FileMaker Unlimited IS necessary because you will have more than 10 clients in a 24 hours period. FileMaker server may not be necessary because you don't have too many FM clients.

There is a calculation to confirm this... I forget what it is. It depends on the number of FileMaker clients X the number of databases being shared. FileMaker server is unlimited as far as I know, but FileMaker clients acting as a server (including FileMaker Unlimited) have this limit. Anyone know what the limit is?

[Anatoli]

FM server:

125 databases

250 clients

FM client can open 50 databases and can host up to 10 clients -- I guess. It is going to be slow after 5 so I never used more than 3-4.

[Harald]

ok, perhaps I didnt explain it clear enough:

the office at which the db will be used is currently using fm4.1 with 10 clients.

Now they want to test a new system where marketing managers and accounting employees should have access to some basic (via www) and more detailed informations. So I would prefer or install the following environment (please consider: at the moment this is only for testing the main functionalities...; please switch to a fixed character view such as courier or monaco to take a look and the following lines - thank you in advance!)

www <<<<| |>>>> LAN

| PC |

20 Marketing | with |

people --www--| db4.1 |--Client1: 4.1

| Server & |--Client2: 4.1

web |--Client3.....

companion

Perhaps the scheme does help you and me to answer the most important question:

The PC in the center should offer one db via http !AND! LAN TCP. The other DBs on the server are shared via TCP to the same LAN.

Before we buy the mentioned fm-SW-parts (server and unlimited version) we simply want to test this structure before going life with the whole system...

I hope this was a better explanation of my main problem...

Greetings Harald and thank you for all of your recent replies!

[Unable]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there is an "Unlimited" version of FMPro 4.1. "Unlimited" did not happen until 5.0.

[Jeff Spall]

Hi, that's right, the limit arrived with FMP5.

We ran an Intranet on FMP4 some years ago, and at that time I had couple of files that were updated directly by two people with FileMaker clients, whilst the database was on the web server.

This was a really bad move.

First, with v4 it was possible for somone to stop the database web serving if, for example, they had clicked into a field and then gone away from their computer. Second, FMP4 is very slow compared to FMP5, which was totally re-written.

The answer to the question is yes, you can do it but it's slow and not 100% reliable. If you want speed and reliability from a simultaneous mixture of client and web, then you really have to go the FMP server/Unlimited route.

If you don't want to spend any money on software, then I guess you could just use a separate copy of FMP4 for web serving and script a very regular export/import between the two. What you shouldn't do is have the same database serving clients and web.

regards, Jeff