I've done some reasearch but cannot seem to wrap my head around how the web publishing feature works. I currently have FileMaker Pro 10 with FileMaker Pro Server. I know that in order to use instant web publishing i need to have FileMaker Server Advanced, but from what i read there are still other ways to make a database web accessible using Pro.

First question is, I have a hosting account with Network Solutions, is it possible to upload database to that account and share from there? I'm thinking this answer is NO but i figured i would ask.

Second, if i were to host from a computer, how does it work? Lets say i have 1 computer for FileMaker Server and i have my desktop. From what i am seeing if i go into the web publishing feature, it will host the database from whatever computer i am currently accessing the database from. So if i were to setup another server, install filemaker pro on it and setup my database for web publishing from that new server, would it be hosted from that machine?

Thanks in advance.

In answer to your first question: no. The vast majority of web hosting companies do not support FileMaker hosting on shared servers. Only a handful of hosts do it.

(Let me add to that: Network Solutions? I recommend you shop around a little.)

Now for question two: IWP isn't hosted from the computer you access from, it's hosted by the host. If the host is FMS, it has to be Server Advanced. If you're asking whether you can install FileMaker Pro (not server) on a machine and host the file via IWP from there, yes you can do that.

You'll have the limitations of peer-to-peer hosting though, and you won't get the automated backups etc. that you get with FMS.

Hope that helped.

That clears things up a bit. Thanks for the reply.

You may want to consider using a third party FileMaker Hosting Provider such as ourselves:

http://www.pointinspace.com/

Feel free to ask any questions you may have either here or off-list to jmay(at)pointinspace.com.

- John