Multi Server Linking

[Henry]

Hi there, now I have some question related to one of the project that still in the discussion.

The solution they need is:

The customer is a distributor for a product. Now they wish to provide a billing and stock control system to their dealers, so that they can use the system to run their business. On the same time, the customer also want to know the stock status for their own product (dealers have selling other product) from all the dealers in real time. On the same time, all the dealers have multiple outlets that also need to link back to HQ.

The attachment is the sample diagram for the solution. Distributor site have one FM Server and all the dealers HQ also have a FM Server. I put it in different server is because the stock control and invoicing system need to store in each dealers’ server, they are different company and they don’t want all the data save in distributor site. So, distributor site only retrieve the stock information and have and stock control system to let them check the stock status for all the dealers in real time.

If view from the bottom part. The outlet users only need to install FMPro to link with dealers’ FM server to use the billing and stock control system. All the data will directly update to the dealers’ server. Now the problem is I’m not sure how the data can be update from the dealers’ server to distributors’ server, and it is only update part of the data, not all. Only selected stock transaction need to update. Is that can be done? The important issue is I’m not sure how the data can be update for 2 levels, from outlet to dealer and then to distributor.

The other question is I want to check common practices for handle WAN connection fail. If the broadband connections fail on one outlet, then they totally can’t use the system. Is that I need to standby a backup copy on their site for temporary usage?

Regards,

Henry

[Wim Decorte]

Your best bet is probably SyncDek from http://www.worldsync.com/.

You could roll your own if all server installations are FileMaker Server Advanced installations. You would then need to write a piece of middleWare that extracts data from the lower-level servers and pushes it to the top-level server through XML, ODBC or JDBC.

As to your #2 question: that could be a big problem but if you make good use of transaction logs between the two levels of servers, you can make this work.

All in all, this is not a simple thing...

[Henry]

OK, thanks for your help, i will go to check for SyncDek. FM Server Advanced i think is too costly for customer since they need some number of server.

Regards,

Henry

[Jay G.]

For clarification--

Regular FileMaker Server doesn't allow JDBC or ODBC connections. You can use XML Import/Export to exchange data with FM Server-hosted files, but this needs to be done through a FM Pro client, recommended to be running on a separate computer.

FileMaker Server Advanced (FMSA), on the other hand, does enable JDBC or ODBC connections directly, no separate client computer required.

As mentioned by Wim, SyncDeK automates the set-up and operation of data synchronization between multiple FileMaker Servers (or FMSA, or standalone FM Pro). SyncDeK 6 can also automate the distribution and updating of new database versions out to the distributed servers (if using FMSA).

Jay Gonzales

WorldSync, Inc.