Small business solution - PC's networked or a server?

[Familyman]

One of my friends had small financial business. She has three PC's networked with a router. They use Microsoft XP Pro and MS Office, mostly Excel. The PC's are all overburdened and very slow.

The question is would a server be a better solution than buying three new PC's?

Also all the files are being stored on one PC. They want to be able to access the same Excel document simultaneously from all three PC's. Currently they cannot do this. Only one person can access a document at a time. Would a server let them all access the same Excel document simultaneously?

[Cricket]

Good question! I don't know the answer and would like to find that out too.

Cricket

[bailey]

from the way I understand it yes, the server-client method is the only right way to do what your asking.

[shazzam]

you still can't write to the same file at the same time no matter what you do. The users will be able to open up the file at the same time, but

1. they can't write to it at the same time and

2. if they write to it sequentially, each subsequent write will overwrite the previous changes.

So if that's the goal, you'll have the same issues even if you get a windows server set up.

[bailey]

I may be wrong but the way I see it, the data base server stores the file's data.
each work station has the same software in there system and interes data to it and when it saved the server updates the file and each workstation can do the same thing at the same time, but only gets the updated data when recived from the server.so they are not actuall writeing to the same file at the same time, just looks that way to them.

[shazzam]

The problem is that when editing an excel file or word file etc, that's not the way it works.

Say you have three users, 1 excel file

User 1 opens the file
User 2 opens the file
User 3 opens the file

Issue 1: in my experience, User 2 and 3 will get a message saying "This file is locked for editing because it is in use by 'User1'" or something like that.

Users 2 and 3 will be given the choice to open a read-only version or get lost

So suppose they both open up the read-only version. And then User 1 makes a change to the file and saves it. It is saved to the host folder (which is on the server).

Now, User 2 and User 3 still won't be able to overwrite because they still have the read-only version.

So the only way to put in their own changes is save it to their local drive and then save-as onto the server using the same name as the original file. And voila! User 1's changes out the window.

There isn't really a 'database server' when it comes to just plain old file sharing.

[bailey]

that is correct, thats why it is not called file shareing

[ceh4702]

The thing about running a server even if it is just a file server is that sever operating systems cost more. A lot depends on the business. If you are running a webserver and have to update a database, then they should be 2 separate boxes or possibly three. There is a concept going on where the Database is on a SQL Server, the Central Application is on an Application server and the Web based HTML server would be on a separate HTML Server with a special firewall between the Web and the Application server for security. The main concept is to have the Database separate from the Application.

This may already be too complex for what you are doing.

One thing is that Access and Excell are not really good for sharing data and having multiple users. They were not designed for High Speed, Multi-User, On-Line environments. You are kidding yourself if you think otherwise. Access is basically junk. It might work better if you had a front end that was designed to use multi-threading for multiple users.

There are probably people out there that write applications like that, but they are not very cheap. There are probalby some shopping cart systems that come bundled with an application and a database that would work better than Access and a roll-your-own solution.

You may want to research this a little before deciding on a solution. You might do a search for small business ERD sloutions.

[shazzam]

Originally posted by ceh4702 One thing is that Access and Excell are not really good for sharing data and having multiple users.

Exactly!

We have full blown network at work here, and whenever we have to access a file from the shared drive we

1. have to have the correct permissions

2. can only write to the file on a first come first serve basis.

In fact, all the updates to excel files that we do have to go through a central person who makes sure changes are not being over-written.

Of course, like I said before, a network won't help the issue if that IS your issue.

[demandred55]

Cost wise, at least for hardware, you may find that it is cheaper to do a client/server setup. Wyse sells terminals for running remote desktop sessions for $200-300. They have no HD or resident applications, they only run remote desktop sessions. This means that the server is doing all of the work so you have to get a good one. It alson means that when it comes time to upgrade, again, you are only upgrading one machine, not 8.
You will need someone qualified to administate this kind of system.
Initial software costs may be higher though. All software applications must be capable of running in that environment which may mean purchasing a different version of Office (and possibly any other applications you use) that supports remote desktop use. Finding a version that supports this should not be very hard, as RDP has become quite popular, but it could be expensive if you have to replace all of your software at once.

*Edit*-After rereading your initial post, I'm not so sure you will get any initial cost benefit from using this type of setup, as you need to be replacing a larger number of PCs to offset the cost of the server. System administration and data management should still be vastly easier if you at least had a file server.

[mairving]

You could setup a Samba server and enable oplocks, although it is ill advised. They really need a database if they plan on accessing the file at the same time. Excel is not made to be a database although it is often used for it. Access would work for a few users.

[Familyman]

Excellent information. Exactly what I was looking for.

Thank you all. You have been very helpful.