[pyrite]

I work for an australian software company, and we've recently made the decision to drop multi-user support of our mac product due to poor network performance in our most recent release.. a possible solution to this would be multi-user via a terminal server style network where users could log in over a remote connection and put the load back on the server, but i'm unaware of how this would work on OS X Server, even after doing some reading on it.

How does remote connection to a mac os server work and what licensing is involved?
i.e what is the mac os x server equivalent of Windows Terminal Services, and what are the mac equivalent of Terminal Server CALs (Client Access Licenses) for logging into the server remotely?

Thanks!

[waffffffle]

Mac OS X does not support concurrent remote GUI logins, a la MS Terminal Services. People have hacked up workarounds by using multiple users in OS X and setting up separate VNC ports for each user, probably not a good solution for a commercial product. X11 in OS X supports displaying remote X11 apps from any X11 platform but Aqua apps cannot be exported.

What is the product? Does the Mac version utilize OS X Server?

[pyrite]

it's a fairly major accounting product which i probably shouldnt name on a public forum

i personally really like the product itself, but i'd like to look at options for the company to get multi-user support back up and running on mac. i'm only a tech support rep, but i've submitted ideas for development before, all of which have been considered, some of which will soon be implemented.
our database is basically a legacy flat file database beneath all the pretty screens, and (mostly due to the rollback file/filette in the actual database file i think) it has become slower and slower over a network over time as the number of features and fields increases. this has been less of a problem over a windows network for some reason, but has still called for terminal services connections when dealing with a >100MB data file and/or >5 concurrent users, as a standard network (even 1gigabit) performs quite poorly in this case.
obviously a terminal server connection localises the processing on the server itself rather than relying on the network to constantly move the file around, which makes our product perform very well in multi-user mode. our only recommendation for mac users at the moment is that those who need multi-user should cross-grade to our PC version (full multi-user support), and set up a dedicated Windows Server 2003 box for running the software. they can then all log into the software via terminal server connections from their macs (using windows remote desktop connections).

although this works and performs very well, it would be nice to be able to implement this style of network in a 100% mac environment if possible. I think it's still a carbon app but i'm really not sure, if that makes a difference.. what info could i find out that would help?
thanks for the quick reply

[goMac]

There is one solution, but no one here is going to like it, and your customers might not either. Microsoft makes a Terminal Services Client for Mac. You can find it on the Microsoft Macintosh web site. It should let you use a Mac as a Windows Terminal Services client, which would mean that the application would have to be hosted on Windows.

You might be better off trying to fix the Mac version.

[PurpleGiant]

I think I know the app you're talking about, we use it at work, and was kinda bummed to find out that the upgrade to the newest version actually took away multi-user support given we're Mac-only.

Now using it single-user instead. Wish I could be of assistance to you, but hopefully you guys work something out. While you're at it, could you mention a few more times to make the program less...non-Mac feeling? Thanks

[waffffffle]

Flat file databases are a bad idea for multi-user applications, as I'm sure you're seeing. The ideal solution would be to make a server version that uses a MySQL database or at least have the clients all connect to a remote MySQL database.

If the flat file database must remain you run into the problems with the current state of transport protocols. AFP 3 is pretty good but still not great for database-like activity. You may want to hope for better network file system performance in future versions of the OS. Relying on AFP or SMB for database transactions probably isn't a good long term strategy.

A Mac OS Terminal Services implementation probably won't solve this problem if the Mac app doesn't properly support multiple users. You'll still have the race conditions and locking issues associated with flat file databases. If your Windows app has true multi user support then you probably want to move that technology over to the Mac version.

Apple integrated SQLite into the OS as an API in Tiger. That may be the answer to providing performance to a local database that can be shared.

[pyrite]

unfortunately design decisions are most definitely not under my authority or influence however purplegiant, if you were using multi-user before you upgraded to the new version, we can offer a free upgrade to one of our enterprise PC products, usually worth $3950 AUS if you're prepared to build a pc server to host it from (you can continue to use your macs in this environment).

gomac, is your suggestion any different from what i said we are recommending at the moment? we are getting multi-user mac customers to exchange their software for PC multi-user software and run it in windows server 2003 and logging in via terminal services from a windows terminal server connection from their macs?

[goMac]

Originally Posted by pyrite 

gomac, is your suggestion any different from what i said we are recommending at the moment? we are getting multi-user mac customers to exchange their software for PC multi-user software and run it in windows server 2003 and logging in via terminal services from a windows terminal server connection from their macs?

Sorry, I didn't see the reply down farther which said that you were already recommending this.

[pyrite]

waffle, sql is exactly what we're looking at for future development, but our PD department haven't yet told us how far off that is...

the multi-user abilities of the PC version do exist in the mac version, but we've stopped supporting it (and stopped selling additional licenses for it) because of how much slower it is in OS X.

[pyrite]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Sorry, I didn't see the reply down farther which said that you were already recommending this.

no problem, i've done that a gzillion times myself