Is FM Server a database server or file server?

[hsitz]

I've read a bit about Filemaker Server and still can't figure out whether it acts as a true database server in a full-blown client/server database environment, or just as some sort of optimized file server.

The difference, for anyone who doesn't know, is that a true database server responds to query requests (usually in SQL) from clients, and each query is processed entirely using the CPU on the server. For a select query, for example, the server will process the query independent of the requesting client, and will then send the result set back to the client. The client does no processing of the query. Fileservers, on the other hand, merely make the files available to the client machines, which do the processing of the queries themselves.

It strikes me as odd that the FM Server literature doesn't clarify whether it's a database server or a file server. It does talk about serving the database files, but in a way that leaves (to me, at least) some ambiguity about what's actually going on in the relationships between client machines and the server machine.

Can anybody clarify things for me?

Thanks,

Herb Sitz

 

[ImStevenB]

It's more of an optimized file server. The processing of the scripts doesn't occur on the FM Server - it happens at the workstation.

Copies of the databases are sent to the workstation and any processing and data manipulation is done there then "sync'd" back the main file.

At least, this is my understanding of how it all works.

HTH
Im Steven B

http://www.myarcadia.net