A question about FMPro 5.5 server

[ivarth]

OK, I may be a bit thick in the head..But I need an answer to one question.

My company has got a lot of Filemaker databases, 50-70 of them and 100-200 users. Currently we are not running FMPro server, the databases reside on a data volume on Novell servers and the clients have got Fmpro 3 and 4 installed on their machines. We have been for some time considering using Fmpro server. If I understand it correctly, all databases will reside on that server (we will have a dedicated Win2K server for this), and all the clients access them using Fmpro 5 on their machines.

What I

[LiveOak]

The answer is: yes your clients can access through a brower, but things work very differently.

Normal access to FM is session based. The server knows who each user is and what his temporary variables are (current found set, globals, current sort order). Browser access is fundamentally different, it is purely transaction based. The web served FM database have no notion of "user" or "session". Each transaction basically stands alone. Status information needed (found set) from transaction to transaction is left to the user.

You can do what you wish, but many interfaces, especially the complex ones, won't translate to the browser model, you will have to create new interfaces for each of the 70 files for browser access. You will need a copy of server running on one machine and a copy FM Unlimited and another machine to serve the files. If you want very complex protection, you may also have to consider purchasing Lasso as a CGI and writing a web based interface based upon it's commands and features.

Bottom line: for 50 to 70 files, purchase a site license for FM (clients and server) and set the file up using FM Server and FM Clients. To redo all you files for web access and purchasing a package such as Lasso will cost far more than just biting the bullet and buying the site license for FM. The best web interface experience you can provide for FM is still only about 25% (or less) of what you can do running FM Client to FM Server and is a lot harder to achieve.

-bd

[Anatoli]

Look for BoxSet!

There are Clients, Server and Unlimited. You can install legally more servers or Unlimiteds in your company.

You pick the lower number from employees or computers:

Company with 1000 workers and 50 computers = license for 50.

Company with 50 workers and 500 computers = license for 50.