Getting Started

[glennw]

Ok I just got a copy of FM5.5 Server I have been developing online surveys with FM4 and 5.5 and web companion but I don't know how easy it is to setup the Server so I'm not limited to 10 users in a 12 hour period. I have to find who in my office snagged the book, is it that hard? Is there online tutuorials or anything to set it up? Thanks

[Anatoli]

Server is no good for this. You need FM Unlimited.

[glennw]

So, what is the use of Server? I thought I could have up to 250 concurrent connections and 125 databases open. This right now is just a test for me to see if it's even feasible to continue. I did forget to mention that I am running this on a G4 OS9.1 mac.

[LiveOak]

With web access there is no such thing as a "connection". Normal client access to FM is session based, you have you own globals and sort order and found set. Web access is transaction based, each transaction must stand alone. The "server" has know idea who a client is transaction to transaction.

FM Server doesn't provide web access to files. This is provided by a normal client version of FM for up to the 10 users and by FM Unlimited for over 10 users (normal commercial use).

A high volume web host for FM might have 5 copies of FM Unlimited running on 5 machines all sharing files hosted by one machine running FM Server. FM Server is multi-threaded, but the client version is single threaded, whether running normal local access to web access to files. An addition program called Web Connector parcels out the requests between machine to load share. If this seems like a goofy way to web host, it is. It seems to be created to make maximum use of existing versions of FM while not compromising license revenue. FM Umlimited is about a grand.

Hope this explaination helps a little.

-bd

[glennw]

Thanks,

That helps a lot. I'm not sure then why I would go that route instead of using say MySQL or Coldfusion to access my ODBC connectors and feed what ever type of DB I want to use. It was my boss' call to use FM Pro but immediately we have hit the 10 user limit and I have only developed 2 perception online surveys. We want to broadcast to several shool districts at one time. Thanks for your clarification on server that helps a lot. Now I have to see if they want to dump the G Note for the Unlimited.

Let me ask this question, if I bought Unlimited can I host enough on one machine to not have to worry about server as well? What I need to do is host approx. 30 online surveys at any given time, this will be hit by different school districts probably not exceeding 250 connections at any one time. Thanks again for the help and clearification.

Glenn

[Anatoli]

Hmm 250 connection.

FM Unlimited is capable on fast windows HW process 5-10 requests (complete Transaction find-sort-serve) per second of processing (CPU) time.

Lot will depend on your design, connection quality etc.