Hi SF Team,

As I have mention in the past, I am just a part-time VB.NET programmer.  I am not on here very often, but when I need advice or REAL answers you guys are the ones I come to. That is why I love SF and renew my license every year to have access to this forum. 

My scenario is this.  I have written Win App obviously using SF.  Each database only has to hold up to 500,000 records maximum so that is why I am using SQL Server Express databases.    Currently, I have setup an VPN connection to enable 2 users to connect remotely to the databases within my client's network for running the win app.   In addition, I have serveral small databases running on a single XP box using a single SQL Server Express instance.  Depending on the client records they can connect to any one of the databases they choose.  At the moment, everything is working great.  However, he wants to setup up to 10 remote users.  Therefore, it poses several questions in my mind that I am looking for some suggestions, advice or even How Tos.   I think hosting this stuff on the internet would make my life easier in terms of supporting the remote users and updating changes to the databases, but being a part-timer I have NEVER done any of this before.

1. What is the simplest way to deploy updates to the remote users?  Over internet?

2. If over the internet, would I host the updates on a ftp site that the remote users would download or have some way that the app automatically downloads the update?

3. Should I use a hosting site for the SQL Server Express databases so that I don't have to support 10 VPN connections?

4. If hosting the SQL Server Express databases on the internet is the way to go, do you have any suggestion on who I should use?

5. Also, if am going to host the databases on the internet, how do I make the connection using SF?

Sorry about all of the NEWBIE questions!  But I want to do this the right way and I know you guys will give me the best advice.

Thank you and thanks again for this helpful forum and your great products.

Jeff

Hi Trent,

Here is another response about the MAC address I received from WebHost4Life:

Hi Jeff, MAC address is sentative information and we will not provide it.

Are you using MAC address to activate your License? I checked their official site and seems you can activate it at your Local PC first, move it to our server and then contact strataframe.net to reset your account so you can re-activate on the new machine. You activate online through the My Account area and download the license file as opposed to a live activation client.

I'm not sure if you have to use new MAC address during "Re-activation". Would you contact strataframe.net about this first?

Trent, where do I go from here?  Please advise!

Thanks,

Jeff

Well, I know that we have a number of users that are using hosting. I think that Keith may be using this very hosting site so we may want to ask him what he did with them in regards to this. I do not recall having a conversation with Keith when he published this, so he might be the person to ask in regards to the MAC address here.

Hi Trent,

I am not sure what I am to do.  This is a brand new application I have been working on and testing in a beta site.  All has gone well and now it looks like I am ready to release the production version of the software in the next couple of weeks.  The very last piece of the puzzle is to move the database from the local network to a hosting site and implement ES.   If all fails, I will need to set-up local installs of the database...Big Yuk!!!!  Unfortunately for me, I am new to web hosting and I was not aware that something like this would be a problem. This will be very disappointing, because I decided to build my solution with SF so that I could use ES for this purpose, and unfortunately, I told my customers about this great feature. 

I don't know who Keith is.  I am willing to use another hosting site if it will guarantee me the ability to do all of this. 

Is it possible for your to get me in touch with Keith?  Or just tell me what hosting site I should use.

Thanks,

Jeff

I spoke with another SF User and he recommended the following:



http://www.hosting.com/dedicatedservershosting/



There is a rep named Eric Hutts that has been recommended as well. This is a dedicated box for around $89 a month versus a shared server box. I know that GoDaddy has an option like this as well. If you do this you will have a full machine dedicated and it will resolve many of these types of issues.