Report speed over VPN issue

[Robert Haussmann]

> One of my customers is running filePro 5.0.13 on a Windows 
> 2000 server that
> is providing filePro apps and regular file services to about 
> 20 Windows PCs
> on their LAN.  Everything runs fine on-site and the speed is 
> very good.  The
> filePro programs and files are run from the server from a 
> mapped drive with
> a desktop icon.  No filePro programs have been installed on the PCs.
> 
[...]

> 
> The problem is that the wireless notebook needs to access the 
> network via a
> mapped drive - not PC Anywhere.  This works but is pretty 
> slow for menu and
> screen functions.  The real problem is in generating reports 
> to view or
> print.  A report that would have been ready in a couple of 
> minutes is still
> selecting records an hour later!!!  I tried it with the 
> filePro programs
> installed on the notebook and didn't see any increase in 
> speed.  How can I
> get the reports to prepare faster over this VPN link with the existing
> hardware/software?
> (Switching operating systems is not an option)

Steve,

Using a mapped drive, you are going to be subject to the 
limitation of the internet connection speed (and if it
is asymmetrical, like most cable connections, some things
will suffer even more).

Is there a reason this notebook user utilize PcAnywhere?  
(It isn't clear from your description why this is no
longer an option).  Another, similar option would be to
use terminal services/remote desktop to the Windows 2K
server (by default, you get two free licenses for 
administration--if there is only one user you could utilize
one of these licenses for him and all processing would be
done on the server itself).

Bob Haussmann
Tabor Children's Services, Inc.