At 05:04 AM 20/03/2004 +0000, you wrote:

>I don't see using a 2-tier application over a ADSL line as an
>absurd. I don't use it for production environments. Sometimes the
>central office needs to see some reports or make minor operations in
>a filial server, for example. It's cheaper than replication or other
>solutions, as you can use the same application to do the job.

Fabiano, I think it's absurd. If that is all you need it for, you don't
even need 3-tier. Shall I tell you how I do the queries I get from you
guys about your IBO community accounts?

Here in NSW, Australia, I have Symantec PCAnywhere, which cost me $125
AUD. It comes with a server and a client. I run the client here on an
as-required basis. In Mesa, Arizona (a 15-hour plane trip from here) Jason
has a server containing all of your accounts in a very large database and
an IIS Web server running his web application, built with IBO, Indy and a
Firebird back-end, ll running on the same box.

I connect to this "back-end" machine from here, via PCA. Once connected,
I'm looking at the desktop of Jason's server. I start up IB_SQL and go to
the Query Forms tab, where I have a few queries I use several times a day
to answer your questions. It could be any IBO application: it just
happens to be IB_SQL. It is as fast as your desktop machine. If I want to
(or if there was an application that did it for me) I could run a report
and output it to a file. I could then use the File Transfer tool to
transfer it directly, or I could email it to myself.

David Johnson's "sneaker-net" is out of the question for our situation, as
I suppose it must be for your very remote users.

I'm on a peer-gain dialup link here: 22 Kbps if I'm lucky. There's no
ADSL where I am. The only part of this whole operation that is slow for me
is that Jason has a big 22" monitor at high resolution, whereas I have a
17" one at 1024 X 768. I have to move around the desktop a lot with the
scrollbars just to find things and those screen repaints sometimes take
time and considerable frustration.

On another system I manage with VNC, at a co-lo in N. California, the
screen resolutions are the same as here, so there is no "repaint-lag". And
VNC, by the way, is platform-neutral and FREE. You can be running a
console or X application on a Linux server in Timbuktoo from your Windows
notebook on a beach somewhere in Brazil. You can have multiple hosts on
the desktop simultaneously. And it is cheap-cheap-cheap. No ADSL fees,
software upgrades are free.

This is 2-tier client-server, yet it's a fine solution for me to run small
jobs from a great distance. I would regard your arrangement as totally
absurd for me.

Virtual networking is a mature science and it's been around a long
time. Nearly 20 years ago I was using X11 dialup to System38 servers from
clunky old original IBM XTs (twin-floppy, HDDs were yet to be invented,
state-of-the-art in 1984) all around New Zealand, to give remote users the
ability to do pretty much the same thing as you're doing. Connection time
is the hangup with X11 (which is all but dead now) but, once you're in,
you're laughing.

Helen