Hi Phil,
Get the server.
I doubt that FMI gives them away, but you can ask. If you can possibly
afford it, it's worth the price.
1. Server itself is much more stable. Ours at my job crashes occasionally,
mostly due to vast amounts of corporate tinkering with the network. There's
rarely any data loss. The nonprofit I administer never crashes. That alone
is great.
2. Even better. If a workstation crashes, the data and other workstations
are not affected. Reboot and go on.
3. There's an effective backup strategy. At work, I use the timer on our NT
Server to perform automatic backups 4 times a day. The service is
temporarily suspended and the files copied to another directory. Setting it
up, there was a brief unpleasantness with DOS batch files, then it worked
forever. I'm not familiar with the Mac server version, but I'd suspect it's
even better.
4. Remote administration. I can open and close files, bump users, issue
messages or check status from my desk.
5. It's fast, too.
We waffled on buying Server for a year, due to the cost. I was never so glad
as when I began using it. The amount of my time wasted on handling stressful
emergencies plummeted. Now I'd advise even the tiniest network to use it.
Let me point out that I use FileMaker 4 with Server 3. Server 5 is easier
and better. The only caveat is to check your system/hardware. Server 3 for
Windows only ran on a fast NT box, for example. I assume v5 runs on W2000 as
well. Mac version probably will want a G3/4 and a recent system.
Gary Bogue
> Subject: FM Server Advantages
> From: "Philip Bowman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 12:10:33 -0500
> X-Message-Number: 3
>
> Friends,
>
> I have been following the discussion on networked ebase systems. We have
> eight individual machine licenses with *no* server
> software running and also see occasional crashes. We would like to make
> the system more reliable as we can only see more and more
> uses for the information we now have available.
>
> Can anyone running the FM server software spell out the real advantages to
> spending $1,000 on a server version of File Maker Pro?
>
> Will we get faster start-up (it's pretty slow). Will it crash less? Will
> we get web features that are actually useful? Will FM
> give away server copies to non-profits?
>
> Any help is appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Phil
>
>
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