Subtitles of the Movie

In this movie we will have a look at the reasons why you choose FileMaker Server to host your files versus just hosting them with FileMaker Pro. The number of guests that can connect to a file hosted by regular FileMaker Pro has varied throughout the versions. In FileMaker 3 to 6, there was a hard limit of 25 users but in reality, it depended on the number of files in your solution and the maximum number of possible clients decreased rapidly with each added file. A moderately complex FileMaker 6 solution, for instance, of let's say 15 files could only be shared with a maximum of five users. And just to make it clear, we're talking about the old versions of FileMaker Pro here. FileMaker Server never had such limitations. As we have seen from the history movie, early versions of FileMaker Server could host files to 100 users and since FileMaker Server 5.5, that number stands at 250. This complexity between number of files and number of possible clients went away with FileMaker 7. Using FileMaker Pro 7 or Pro 8, you could only have five users connected at any given time and that number went up with FileMaker 9 to nine concurrent users and it hasn't changed in FileMaker 10. So nine users if you have a file hosted with FileMaker Pro as opposed to 150 users if you host a file with FileMaker Server or 999 users if you host a file with FileMaker Server Advanced; nine versus 250 or nine versus 999. That's an obvious and serious limitation to using FileMaker Pro as the host. But there are other challenges. When you host files with FileMaker Pro, then those files need to be physically opened in a copy of FileMaker Pro somewhere, meaning that someone needs to log into the machine, launch FileMaker Pro and then open the files that need to be hosted. And more specifically, open the files with an account that will allow the files to be hosted. This is very different with FileMaker Server because FileMaker Server is designed to run in the background as a service or daemon and it does not require that somebody is logged into the machine. Actually for security reasons, servers usually run with nobody logged in. A very real risk when hosting with FileMaker Pro is that someone will inadvertently close the files on the host and thereby cut off all the users or even worse, will decide to reboot the machine while guests are still connected. FileMaker Pro does not have a user interface like FileMaker Server's Admin Console to show you what users have what files open. Also part of sharing is that FileMaker Pro can only be used as an ODBC or JDBC data source for applications on the same machine. You can not make an ODBC request to FileMaker Pro from across the network. And XML publishing is completely not available in FileMaker Pro. Talking about security, having a machine sit there with FileMaker Pro and the files open is an obvious security risk if the machine is accessible for anyone to walk up to and take the files. Sometimes people use a password-protected screensaver to get around that, but bear in mind that screensavers can take a healthy chunk of processing cycles. I've seen fancy screensavers take up to 20 percent of the processor's time. FileMaker Pro is not optimized in the same manner as FileMaker Server is. FileMaker Server, for instance, handles hard disk input and output much faster than FileMaker Pro. Another performance aspect is that when FileMaker host machine is in use, let's say someone is actively working on the FileMaker solution or any other program, writing a letter in Word, for instance, then that activity will hurt the performance of every single connected guest. Backups are another very important difference. FileMaker Server can take backups while there are users actively working in the solution and FileMaker Server has also a built-in scheduler. These are all features that are lacking from FileMaker Pro. So you can do that easily when FileMaker Pro is your host. You obviously can't touch the files while FileMaker Pro has them open. Doing that would mark then as improperly closed and it will very likely lead to data or file corruption in the long run. So the only thing when you're hosting with FileMaker Pro that you're left with is a Save as Copy script step. And you're also faced with the challenge of finding a way to run that script on a schedule. You can, of course, put the FileMaker Pro host in a scripted loop, but that will obviously prevent anyone from using that machine. Usually when FileMaker Pro is used as the host you'll also find that it is running on a workstation and not on a server. Server hardware is more expensive, of course, but for a good reason. It's built to last longer. Usually when FileMaker Pro is used as the host, you'll find that it is running on a workstation and not on a server. Server hardware is more expensive, of course, but for a good reason. It is built to last longer. Using a workstation as your FileMaker host will therefore result in less stability and less reliability for your solution. What else is there that FileMaker Server can do that FileMaker Pro can't? Well, FileMaker Server can be configured to disconnect idle guests, for instance, freeing up resources for your machine. FileMaker Server can also take advantage of multiple network cards, either by combining the bandwidth of the network cards or making the files available on different segments of the network. FileMaker Server has a built-in utility to check the file's consistency. So using FileMaker Server in this case you can make sure that your files are in good health. FileMaker Server also does extensive event logging, which is as we will see, the first place to look when things go wrong. These are all topics that we will explore further in this tutorial. So what is the conclusion? Although you can use FileMaker Pro to host files, using FileMaker Server is by far the better solution, even for small workgroups.