Sorry for not giving enough info. The teacher machine is a 2 year old Dell optiplex 780 with about a 60 Gb HD and 2 Gb RAM. I do not know what processor. Some of the student machines are identical and some are Dell Optiplex 740s that are about 4 or 5 years old. I presume the HD and RAM specifications in the oder machines is somewhat less than the 780s. The software is Musition and Auralia. These are two music theory packages that share the same database and operate as a unit. Musition is for Music Theory and Auralia is for ear training.

I could run the software as a standalone on each machine and just lose the centralization of the teacher functions but the IT folks don't want to do that. In fact they really want everything to be web based but that's not possible in this case.

Thanks to everyone. This is very helpful

RGS

________________________________

From: fmachine irebird-support@yahoogroups.com on behalf of Kjell Rilbe
Sent: Sun 5/29/2011 1:06 AM
To: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [firebird-support] Firebird network installation questions



Den 2011-05-29 05:37 skrev rds731@... såhär:

> I am a music teacher with a music computer lab to administer. I have
> received two pieces of software that will be very useful to us but am
> having trouble getting my IT folks to get them installed.
>
> We have about 20 Win XP pro machines to set up that are part of a larger
> network for a large school district. The new software will run as a
> standalone on each machine if needed but to be the most effecient, it
> needs to be installed on a server with Firebird.
>
> I am asking my IT folks to use the teacher station at the front of the
> class as the server for the machines in the classroom but they seem to
> dislike that idea. They say it won't work with Win XP pro. They say that
> a server version of WIN XP needs to be installed. They also say Firebird
> needs a machine of its own; that it can't share a server with other
> software.
>
> I have the impression that either they don't know how or don't want to
> bother with this but since I'm not well versed in setting up networks,
> I'm looking for some information to help them figure this installation
> out.

Helen gave you an excellent reply, but I'd like to clarify/add/summarize
as follows:

1. The Firebird server software is in essence just another Windows
program that CAN be installed to run as a Windows service. That does
NOT, repeat NOT, require any specific edition of Windows. It will even
run on Windows 98 if I'm not utterly mistaken.

2. The software that you need to install "on a server with Firebird" may
or may not require a server edition of Windows. You'll have to examine
the system requirements for that software. If it says it needs a Windows
server edition that requirement is not related to Firebird. Consult with
the supplier if it is really required and why.

3. I assume there's a client part of the software you want to use. That
client installation will need to know how to find the server. For
Firebird purposes, all that's required is:

3a. The client has to be able to find the machine with the server
installation by means of either an IP address or a hostname.

3b. The client has to know which port on the server to connect to, if it
connects directly to the Firebird server. The default port is 3050, but
your software server installation may or may not configure the Firebird
server to use a different port.

3c. Both server machine and client machines have to be able to
communicate over the port in question. You may need to open the port in
your firewall(s).

Having said that, there's always the possibility that your machines are
too weak to handle the load. Having an old 486, like Helen said, with
little RAM and a slow hard disk is not a good choise for running a
server application serving 20 clients. But on the other hand, it MAY
WORK - if the software is lightweight and doesn't require much from the
server. You can always give it a try!

Good luck,
Kjell
--
--------------------------------------
Kjell Rilbe
DataDIA AB
E-post: kjell@...
Telefon: 08-761 06 55
Mobil: 0733-44 24 64



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