I have a 85+ file, 2 GB db solution, which I want to run "Save Compressed copy" on regularly, or at least some specific files.

Does anyone have suggestions to automate this process.

FM 5 server on Linux, FM 6.x clients on Win and Mac OSX (10.3 and 10.4). Currently running our reports on a stand-alone OS X system.

Tricky if you want to automate it, because you'd need plenty of error checking and handling in case something goes wrong.

Here goes:

- shell script on the Linux FMS box to close the files

- same shell script: checking the event log to make sure they are all closed before moving on to the next step

- same shell script: copy the files to another machine (needs to have a copy of FMP on it)

- that other machine runs a scheduled task (in the OS) to open FMP, open the files and run a "save compressed copy" script

- FMP then triggers an OS script (VBscript on Windows, shell/applescript on Mac) to rename the files if necessary, zip the originals as backup, leaving the compressed files in its shared folder so that the FMS box can pick them up from there. FMP closes itself

- a timed shell script picks up the compressed files from the remote machine, moves them to the live FMS folder and tells FMS to host them again, checking the event log to make sure everything works.

That's the logic. The implementation depends largely on what remote machine you will use (Mac or Windows).

well I have the backup scripts on the linux box. A twice a day, warm backup; a daily cold backup; and a weekly cold backup. Also have a rsync script setup to copy cold backup files to remote backup location.

from the remote backup I can grab a copy of the files to a mac workstation which runs a FM6. The workstation is where we will run the big reports that do not change data.

When I compress, I then rsync the files backup to the remote backup and finally restore the compressed copies. rsync does all the copying without out any problem. awesome app.

This maybe over kill for compression. If I only run a compress copy every few months I will be fine. Trouble is it takes hrs to compress the whole set. If I could have an applescript that would open all FM files and compress each over night.

Personally I think running this every night is overkill; you won't be getting enough performance benefit from it to warrant the trouble doing it.

Doing it every night needs a lot of error checking and rolling-back functionality that - in my mind - is too risky for what you may get out of it.