Kind of a complex scenario but I'll try to be clear and concise.

Our current app is written as a typical(relatively) VFP application. It can be installed on a server or workstation and uses native VFP tables/databases. It is NOT written as a client/server app so if it's loaded on the network server, the client executes the EXE on the server and it runs on the client PC.

Due to some large tables and increased processing times, the idea was proposed to break off our query(filtering) function and write it as a COM server that could be executed on the server to speed processing. So, if a client is running the app and the data is on the server and the COM server is on the server then it would save time by doing all the work on the server and not pulling data to the local workstation. This query process is the first stepping in running a reporting section of the app and those reports would also be compiled into a COM server to be run on the server. In some basic tests of a COM server with hard-coded data paths, etc. the speed increase was fairly significant (half the time the query took in our normal application).

So, we would still have our normal application, but instead of our querying function being a part of the application EXE, we would call a remote COM server to do the query work on the server. Incidentally, we're talking about a LAN as opposed to an internet situation.

What I'm looking for is experienced opinions on whether this is a reasonable/possible scenario to implement or are there some big pitfalls waiting that I'm unaware of. I've already hit a few (like UNC pathing as opposed to drive mappings) and found workarounds, but I'm concerned about any larger issues. To date, my sample COM server has been compiled as a COM Server EXE in VFP and I've used the RACMGR32 and AUTMGR32 to handle the instantiation of the COM server on the remote PC/Server.

I'm sure there are many other details you might need, but didn't want to overload more than I already have. ;)

Thanks for any thoughts or resources you may be able to provide,

Tim