Considering FileMaker or Access for a Starter Database
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
People seem to assume Access will only work with Access databases (Jet), when it works brilliantly with other databases, especially SQL server but I've written apps based on Oracle. I mostly use it with SQL Server these days. Whatever you use, the database should reside on a server not a desktop.
I'm very aware that it talks to SQL Server, that's the only way that I would ever consider using it, but was unaware that it works with other options. Will it talk to the big two: MariaDB and PostgreSQL or at least Firebird?
It's called ODBC.
I used Access to connect to my AS/400's DB2 server. As long as ODBC is presented to the client, it works just fine.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
And Access runtime is free. So you can develop multi users solutions using Access runtime and SQL Server express for practically free.
The runtime is free? Is that true on iOS devices too (a requirement for the client in question.) What about on Linux? Can we "access" it from anywhere?
2013+ offers some fun stuff, but in a sense, no, it's not a "web" application. You can use Access, and an ACCDB, as a backend for design and the DB for IIS. I believe Apache can do it as well, but haven't bothered trying nor would it be really worth it other than a "look what I can do" thing.
SQL Server Express is free... except for the Windows Server license cost which would be required for even a tiny company and means that the cost shoots up by about $700. Not epic, but for a ten person company, not trivial either. But if you can use PostgreSQL, that would solve that piece.
SQL Server runs on any version of Windows. I use Developer on Windows 8. I've used Standard on XP. It's not a perfect solution, but if you need to get some info into standard format of SQL and don't have interwebs access, it's great.
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@PSX_Defector said:
SQL Server runs on any version of Windows. I use Developer on Windows 8. I've used Standard on XP. It's not a perfect solution, but if you need to get some info into standard format of SQL and don't have interwebs access, it's great.
The OP has an office too big to be used that way though for licensing reasons.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@PSX_Defector said:
SQL Server runs on any version of Windows. I use Developer on Windows 8. I've used Standard on XP. It's not a perfect solution, but if you need to get some info into standard format of SQL and don't have interwebs access, it's great.
The OP has an office too big to be used that way though for licensing reasons.
Just pointing out that Windows Server is not a requirement for SQL Server.
There is always the use of Azure's hosted DB. Again, simple, easy, ODBC compliant, uses standard SQL Server tools to modify and access. It's got some quirks, like I couldn't use hMailServer on it without some major modification of the schema, but otherwise it's plenty easy for quick and easy DB deployment.
Given the "need" for iOS "access", seems stupid not to put it in a hosted solution. Licenses are then just a line item on the invoice.
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What is the pricing structure for MongoDB?
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@BRRABill said:
What is the pricing structure for MongoDB?
There is a starter package for free. Then you can upgrade to the enterprise package for free. Then if you need HA clustering or global redundancy, that's an extra free.
Did I mention, it's free?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
What is the pricing structure for MongoDB?
There is a starter package for free. Then you can upgrade to the enterprise package for free. Then if you need HA clustering or global redundancy, that's an extra free.
Did I mention, it's free?
I was a little confused by the wording on their website.
I thought it was free, but it was worded strange.
Like you can download it for free for evaluation and development.
That's like saying you can take the car for a free test drive and cross country trip.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
What is the pricing structure for MongoDB?
There is a starter package for free. Then you can upgrade to the enterprise package for free. Then if you need HA clustering or global redundancy, that's an extra free.
Did I mention, it's free?
I was a little confused by the wording on their website.
I thought it was free, but it was worded strange.
Like you can download it for free for evaluation and development.
That's like saying you can take the car for a free test drive and cross country trip.
Cloud Manager is not free, but you can get a trial for eval and development, maybe that is what you saw?
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This is the important bit that tells you that it is truly free and protected free:
"MongoDB is covered under the GNU AGPL v3.0 license."
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@scottalanmiller said:
Cloud Manager is not free, but you can get a trial for eval and development, maybe that is what you saw?
This is the page I was looking at:
https://www.mongodb.com/lp/download/mongodb-enterprise -
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Cloud Manager is not free, but you can get a trial for eval and development, maybe that is what you saw?
This is the page I was looking at:
https://www.mongodb.com/lp/download/mongodb-enterpriseThat's not even the right website for MongoDB!! They are a .org.
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@scottalanmiller said:
That's not even the right website for MongoDB!! They are a .org.
As BRRABill quickly tries to delete posts...
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Are you sure they aren't related?
I will admit to not looking closely, but they look related.
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@BRRABill said:
Are you sure they aren't related?
I will admit to not looking closely, but they look related.
They are related, same company, but one is the site for the database, the other is the site for the commercial services and add ons for the database. So looking at commercial support contracts and non-open software licenses will be very misleading compared to only looking at the free and open database product itself.
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Many major OSes include MongoDB as well. MongoDB is provided with products like CentOS, RHEL and Ubuntu.
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@BRRABill said:
Are you sure they aren't related?
I will admit to not looking closely, but they look related.
It's pretty common for Opensource firms to make their money off offering enterprise support agreements.
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I have supported FM server here for the past 5.5 years (Versions 10-13, so far). It is OK from a small-scale perspective but like you said above, you don't want to look small-scale, especially since you will almost surely trap yourself. As far as I can tell, FM does not scale well. Our FM guy is a co-owner and taught himself how to create and maintain FM databases and he is pretty good at it. However, I am sure there are things he has done that were taking the long way around with a sort of house of cards effect. I would say that over half of our business relies on the 25 or so databases he has created.
We also use an ERP program, Southware (which seems horribly antiquated) for things like inventory, AR and AP. The only thing I do for that is deploy the thin-client software and maintain the windows server that it runs on, as we have a consultant company that specializes in it. We have tried to move off it several times but since we have customized it so much, we are pretty much stuck with it.
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@wrx7m said:
I have supported FM server here for the past 5.5 years (Versions 10-13, so far). It is OK from a small-scale perspective but like you said above, you don't want to look small-scale, especially since you will almost surely trap yourself. As far as I can tell, FM does not scale well. Our FM guy is a co-owner and taught himself how to create and maintain FM databases and he is pretty good at it. However, I am sure there are things he has done that were taking the long way around with a sort of house of cards effect. I would say that over half of our business relies on the 25 or so databases he has created.
I supported FM for a company, NTG's second MSP customer, actually, for over a decade and it does its job well enough for what it is. But there is no doubt that it's extremely limiting in every possible way. They use it for a three person office that was two people in 2001 when the company started and grew to whopping.... two people over a decade later. During the summers they go up to three people for a few months during their busy season. For a company with zero growth and no high reliability demands (it can be down for a month at times without an issue) it worked fine. But, very limiting and they have had to pay a bit for it over the years and I'm not sure that a spreadsheet would not have been cheaper and easier.
