FMS Solution Help

[TomWoozle]

I am trying to use Filemaker as part of an online store solution (I have actually just taken over the project), and I am having a few issues. Hopefully someone can make some suggestions to help me out...

The setup is an online store that takes orders via a shopping system that we have purchased (which works excellently) and dumps them into a tab delimited file. On the same server we have Filemaker Server (an Mac OS X 10.2 XServe) running which contains all previous orders (and we use FMS 3 currently, so have many records to move over, hence the choice of Filemaker for the new system).

The way the developers who I have taken over from interfaced between a tab delimited file and FMS was to (at 2am each day) shut down the server (via perl scripts and the "fmserverd stop" command), boot up FMP and import the records (combo of Applescript and FMP scripts) locally, then quit the client and relaunch the server.

This is a horribly ugly way of doing things, and is made dangerous with the problems I hear about (and have already experienced) with corruption on shut down of FMS on OS X. Sometimes the server will just hang also...

I am considering ditching Filemaker for mySQL and writing a custom interface; however the company has already spent a lot on this solution and has been using FM for years so it would mean reworking a lot of legacy scripts.

Any advice or suggestions would be welcome! I would love to find a way to import the information without having to shutdown the server...

[Kurt Knippel]

Here is what I would do.

WebServer on one machine.

Filemaker Server on another machine.

Filemaker Pro on a third machine (maybe your workstation, but any will do). Then at whatever interval you like, open the DBs (via File -> Open -> Hosts) and import the records. Alternately you could set this up in a scripted loop on a spare machine to just keep repeating this process at whatever interval you want.

Having your web server and Filemaker Server running on seperate machines is not a necessity, and the XServe is certainly powerful enough to handle it, but it is just good practice to do this. Also Filemaker Server (especially an old version) and OS X do not work well together. Put it on a lower-end machine running OS 9.x (we use the G4 Cubes for FMS). You'll have alot less problems.

Now to your choice of MySQL vs Filemaker. I would look at it like this. Is the DB in use by people on the LAN? Are you using any functionality that is uniquely Filemaker? If not go with MySQL, which is a ******* good system for raw databases and web interface. MySQL actually runs FMForums.

[TomWoozle]

Sorry, I wasn't clear -- the current system us using FMS 3.0 - the new one I am working on will be 5.5.

The problem I have is that the orders come in one the webserver and need to be imported to the database, which I am keen to serve from the same server (as I don't have tonnes of machines to spare, amd it is plenty capable). However, currently another side effect of the horrible way I am doing things is that the machines needs to be left logged in as someone -- which I am not keen on as it is a co-located server at our ISP.

I have given thought to your suggestion of using another machine for the importing using FMP, but my scripts would have to copy the order files to said machine then fire up the client and do the import to the server.

The only thing holding me back from using mySQL is the creation of the interface etc.. I have no expeirence of mySQL, but figure I could learn it pretty quick, same for creating an interface in PHP (which I understand is the best way..?).

Thanks a lot for your advice.

[Kurt Knippel]

Sorry, I wasn't clear -- the current system us using FMS 3.0 - the new one I am working on will be 5.5.

There are still SERIOUS issues with FMS on OS X and I would avoid it if at all possible.

The problem I have is that the orders come in one the webserver and need to be imported to the database, which I am keen to serve from the same server (as I don't have tonnes of machines to spare, amd it is plenty capable). However, currently another side effect of the horrible way I am doing things is that the machines needs to be left logged in as someone -- which I am not keen on as it is a co-located server at our ISP.

There is no reason that the database needs to reside at the same location as the web server.

I have given thought to your suggestion of using another machine for the importing using FMP, but my scripts would have to copy the order files to said machine then fire up the client and do the import to the server.

And that is more of a problem than the alternatives?

The only thing holding me back from using mySQL is the creation of the interface etc.. I have no expeirence of mySQL, but figure I could learn it pretty quick, same for creating an interface in PHP (which I understand is the best way..?).

As I said, if you are not using anything that is uniquely Filemaker and you do not need an interface to users on your LAN, then why bother with Filemaker at all. MySQL would be much better for web-only work.