>>Hi,
>>
>>My VFP 9 application usually resides on a VM server. And the users/clients have the desktop shortcuts pointing to the executable residing on the VM server (e.g. in folder c:\myvfp9app\myapp.exe)
>>
>>I need to tell the customer IT person that in order for the application to respond better (speed of connection and loading various windows) the VM server has to be "closer" to the customers. For example, if the users are in the state of Florida, the VM server has to be somewhere closer to the users/clients in this state.
>>
>>What term do I use to tell the IT person instead of "closer" (kind of not very technical :)). That is, how do I explain/define this concept?
>>
>>TIA
>
>Of course, closer in geographical sense isn't always better. I remember back in the 1980s where I needed to transfer some data from one computer to another -- both located in the UCLA campus, but no direct link between them. The IBM minicomputer was on BITNET, and the Unix computer was on Arpanet. The nearest (geographically speaking) gateway site was at UC Berkeley. If I transferred the data through Berkeley it took nearly a week (due to the heavy traffic there) for the files to arrive. On the other hand, if I used the gateway in Wisconsin (geographically much further away) which had much less traffic (and required me to manually specify the routing for the transfer), and the transfer completed in just a few minutes.

Thank you for your input.