FM Server Advanced Required?

[traci16]

I am looking into purchasing FileMaker for my company. It sounds like a great tool that would give us the flexibility to choose client/server types of deployments or web deployments. I am interested in your view points on what the best FileMaker software configurations would be for our situation. We are a small sized business that is hoping to grow substantially, so our budget is large enough for Server Advanced if required.

Here's our situation:

- We currently have 10 people who would need to access the final database. All 10 could potentially be concurrent. We are hoping to double this number over the next year and continue to grow from there.

- We have two locations that are physically separate where people would need to access the same database

- Data security is highly important in our line of business

As I understand, our options would be:

1) FileMaker Server hosts the application and each client would need to have FM Pro installed on their system to access the file over the network. Application speed would be dependent on network?

2) FileMaker Server Advanced hosts the application and we could publish web pages using IWP. How does this limit the functionality that is provided with IWP vs. FM Pro?

3) FileMaker Server Advanced and Custom Web Publishing....not sure how this works! Would appreciate any input/insight! Does the functionality between FM Pro and CWP compare? Also, do I need any other software on top of FM Server Advanced to host this type of configuration?

I would appreciate any guidance you can provide!

[stanley]

Traci:

Welcome to the Forums.

You've got a pretty firm grasp of the basic situation. To answer your points in order:

1. The hosted system is indeed very reliant on network speed, as is any networked solution. This can lead to slowdowns when accessing FM Server remotely (via the internet.)

2. There are some limitations when hosting via IWP, but if they are anticipated during planning, they can be avoided. When building the system, it is possible to limit the scripting library to show only those functions which are "web compatible," thus ensuring that your solution will work via IWP/CWP.

3. The basic difference between running client-server FMP and running IWP/CWP is that in the latter you've got the browser in between you and your data. This can cause some interface issues, as well as limiting functionality very slightly, as mentioned in #2, above. You don't (necessarily) need any other software beyond FMSA to run the configuration. There is a good deal of documentation on this at FileMaker's website.

If you can afford to run via FileMaker Server and have all client machines running FileMaker Pro, that would be your most powerful solution. Because you're not hosting on the web (port 80), you are much more secure as well. Also, if you ever have the need to allow access via IWP, you can always allow that at a future date. If you are contemplating using IWP/CWP in the future, be sure to inform your developers of this, so they can prepare for the contingency.

HTH

-Stanley