Is FM the correct application for this?

[djlane]

I recently developed some software for a company in USA, and now they have asked me to make something bigger for them.

The new system will be for tracking inquiries, quotations, placing and monitoring purchase orders with suppliers, inventory management, invoicing and interfacing with an accounting system. Between 5 – 10 people using the system in any one location, and similar systems to be installed in 6 locations around Asia, with an “overall” view of things back in USA (not sure how to do that yet...). Not more than 3,000 transactions with a total of up to 30,000 line items per month, per location.

My question is whether or not FM & FM Server is the right tool for the job, or should I be looking to use something like SQL server? I don’t have any experience with SQL, but I also don’t want to use FM only to find out later on that I should have used a “bigger” or more robust system. Is FM9 regarded as robust / secure / and suitable for a mission critical application of the size above?

Or put it another way – At what point (in number of users, or size of database, or number of records) would FM no longer be regarded as the appropriate application to use ?

[CobaltSky]

Hi djlane,

It's not just the number of users and amount of data that determines whether a solution runs smoothly and efficiently - the outcomes substantially depend on:

a) what you want to do with the data and how users will interact with it, and

: how the solution is designed.

I've seen SQL-based systems of the approximate size you mention that were just about unusable - and I've seen FileMaker systems of that size that were a simple joy. And of course, I've seen the reverse of both cases.

To put it simply, nothing you've said rules FIleMaker out - provided the solution is designed and implemented appropriately.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

[color:red]Always pay close attention to anything Ray Cologon tells you. As always, his advice here is very good.

A few technical stats for FileMaker Server 9 Advanced:

Up to 250 FileMaker Pro connections. You can also have as many as 50 ODBC connections to FileMaker Server as a source each of which decrements that 250 ceiling by one.

Up to 100 simultaneous Instant Web Publishing Sessions.

Some number of Custom Web Publishing sessions, but never more than 100 active at a given time. These switch on and off, unless you have enabled sessions for CWP.

Any given instance of FIleMaker srrver 9 Advanced can host 125 files at once.

I might add, this would take a very beefy server to manage all this. Something like a dual core dual processor HP with 15K rpm US SCSI drives, 4 GB RAM, and a beefy processor.

HTH.

Steven

[djlane]

Thank you guys, thats what I wanted to hear. I will be a lot more comfortable doing it with Filemaker, and taking Rays advice I will be very careful to design it as best I can.

For the system in NY which is to provide a view of the system in each country - I was thinking of using either a VPN (which is already in place) or using syncdek. Any advice on which is better ?

thanks

[Steven H. Blackwell]

For the system in NY which is to provide a view of the system in each country - I was thinking of using either a VPN (which is already in place) or using syncdek. Any advice on which is better ?

Why? What are your objectives here? Neither of these options strikes me as needed. Have I missed something here?

Steven

[djlane]

Hi Steven,

The New York office want to be able to see whats going on in each of the countries in Asia. Each Asian location will have its own system with its own customers, orders, etc.

I somehow need to pull all this together so that head office in NY can see whats going on everywhere, and extract data from each location for interfacing with the NY accounting system.

So I was thinking I could use Syncdek so that NY would have an exact duplicate of the database in each location. Or maybe to use VPN and place tables from each location onto a relationship graph on a system in NY.

[Stuart Taylor]

Take a look at the seperation model, This architectural model would seem to fit. I am of the impression that client to server data transfer is encrypted automatically so no VPN is required, even via the internet.

There would be several models to choose from that would potentially increase performance for individual users.

Your data could all be in one place and connected to from multiple sites via each client.

or

Data could reside in multiple locations (local specific data for each on there own LAN) and accessed via files residing on each client.

Edited December 23, 2007 by Guest

[Steven H. Blackwell]

SyncDek would be very useful in such a situation. The VPN is not needed. You can select the encryption option in FileMaker Server if needed. The VPN is likely adversely to impact performance.

Steven

[djlane]

OK, Thanks guys