New to SLX and open for advice.
dan4t...@my-deja.com
Unless you have > 75,000 accounts or so your hardware should be more
than adequate. Way more.
Remote client laptops should be late-model, not vintage. 233Mhz/64MB
RAM bare minimum.
VPN is very flaky on Win95, any version. If you're still using it,
upgrade.
Beyond that, everything is relative to the size of your data, not the
hardware.
Interbase starts to gag once a remote db approaches 1G. Consider this
carefully... if your initial remote DBs are even half that think about
Terminal Server. Not popular w/ the remote folks, but neither are 1
hour syncs or loss of data.
29 remote users won't kill you. Above 50 or so you'll wish you had a
full time person 'cause at least 1-2 days a week you'll be dealing with
remote B.S. (sync issues, RAS issues, hardware issues, human issues)
[BTW, we currently have 45 remotes, average remote DB is 100-200MB.]
Our biggest issues 18 months past implementation are sync and Outlook;
i.e. people dont trust the data, dont sync often enough, and don't use
activites because they don't want to leave outlook and can't remember to
press extra buttons to sync the two.
There are behavioral factors to consider. If your VAR doesn't talk
about this, then they've never supported anyone past the original
install and basically just resell licenses.
The software overall is very good. But I'd pay double for rock-solid
sync. Every new version brings new sync bugs as it fixes others.
Consider 2-year license growth & renewals in your budget. SLX does a
crummy job handling turnover, so budget for that too (or buy the cheap
web licenses)
Don't trust or even expect your VAR to audit the data migration. That's
your job. In our case the migration got handed to their most junior
developer and was basically botched. Make sure you have some dry runs
built in to your plan.
The software is great, the support SUCKS. Our VAR spends most of it's
time selling or doing consulting. Anything not in the Interact KB
usually elicits "wow that's strange" or "are you at the latest patch?"
rather than "that's because...". And phone calls to Interact can be
mind numbing. They've put several layers around support that all try to
send you back to your VAR.
The alleged "Admin training" from Interact will be useful for everyone
except the IT Admin person who has to keep the thing up and running.
They do a great job of covering the app as a development platform but
the instructors and the curriculum know nothing of real-world issues
(such as "Help I can't see this account" or "Sync isn't working" or
"Everything is running slow")
I'm not trying to bad-mouth the support, but since you're on the happy
sunny side of the implementation, I've gone off the deep end to contrast
the rosy picture you are no doubt getting from your VARs.
Happy implementation, and welcome to the crowd. I've received tons of
help from this board. Hopefully you will too.
-D4P
In article <8tpv0n$hq3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
rko...@chatsworth.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> My company will be purchasing and deploying SLX (enterprise edition)
> in the near future. We will have approx 70 users of which 16 will be
> on a remote office server, 29 will be remote access and the remainder
> will be workgroup users. Our SQL (7.0)will be on a dual processor
> (733) with a gig of ram and raid5 (5-18 gig) hdd. Our remote office
> server and sync server will be identical equipment with dual (733)
> processors, 512 Mb RAM also Raid5 (5-18 gig) hdd (probably overkill,
> but dont want to change equipment later)...Our WAN backbone is a full
T-
> 1.....currently running RAS for remote access clients, working towards
> rapid deployment of VPN. We are looking at two different VARS and
will
> go with the one we are most comfortable with.
>
> Is there anyone out there that has a similar set up and experience
> that can advise me what pitfalls to watch out for either in the VAR's
> or with the software it's self?? Any information would be
appreciated.
> You may respond either directly to me at rko...@chatsworth.com or post
> a reply here.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Randy Kouns
> Remote Access Support Specialist.
> Chatsworth Products, INC.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.