Gil,

It really depends on how you wrote the application in the first place. If most of your data access is through views and the user always enters some search criteria before being presented with lists of records, it might not be that difficult to move to c/s. If you mainly just open tables, set orders, use SEEK and LOCATE and do browses on entire tables, you may have your work cut out for you. I think there are some whitepapers on the MS VFP web site upsizing to c/s.

The first thing you need to do is consider the fact that all data manipulation on a c/s database is done through SQL commands (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE). There are two ways to do this. When you use views, VFP simplifies this for you by automatically generating the necessary SQL. You can also send commands directly to the database using the SQLEXEC() function. This is known as SQL pass-through (SPT). Personally, I often use views when I need to update data, but SPT for queries that are created on the fly. I do this because views can be a pain to maintain when your database structure changes, but they simplify adding and updating records. Some people use all views or all SPT. It will probably depend quite a bit on how your applications are currently written.

If you're going to be using a product like SQL Server or Oracle, I would highly recommend hiring someone who is familiar with the product. These products are very complex and new users often find that they are unable to optimize their databases well enough to get good performance. This is particularly difficult for us VFP programmers who are used to lightening-fast FoxPro data handling.

>We are using a database that has 700,000 customers and about 1 M+ of orders; we've been told that a client/server structure is more robust, safe and able to communicate with other technologies such as IVR's and the like. Currently we have all the data in a server computer and this is accessed through apps installed in the workstations, which just makes it a file sharing system. What does it take to do the migration to client/server and how complex does it get?. Any FAQ out there?
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>Thanks a MILLION for the help
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>Gil