>When Visual Foxpro was introduced there was a lot of talk from various developers about using VFP as the server in n-tier applications. They made it sound as though it was just a few mouse clicks and the job was done. I would like to know how to do it.

Certainly not a 'few mouse clicks'.

>I need to configure VFP as a server rather than use SQL Server or Oracle. I have an application using remote views that I built manually and then use ODBC to access the VFP tables. This strikes me as not efficient since the local PC must process both the SQL of the remote view and the application.
>

Yep, but if you are using Remote Views already, you can convert your ap to use MSDE fairly easily. Just upsize with the SQL Server wizard, then use MSDE (which is the same data engine as SQL Server 7.0 but is free) as your back end. Of course, if you have more than 10-15 user you really should move to SQL server.

>Technically I could use Oracle or SQL Server as the network server but I ran into tremendous political problems at my client's site and so those options are out. Now my approach is to use VFP itself for the server and I can then avoid the IS department entirely. Plus the minimum licensing cost and the use of a DBA to build the data base will come to $25,000. My client has better uses for his money.
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You don't need a DBA, since you already designed the database, you just need to upsize it to SQL server. You can use a Case tool like XCase to import your VFP database into a design, then export that design to a SQL server. Or, you can use the VFP SQL Upsizing wizard to create your database into SQL Server. As I said above, since you already coded using remote views and ODBC, once you migrated the data you just have to change the DSN to point to the SQL Server... and test.

>Can someone point me to any articles on this topic or have personal experience with it and be able to get me started?

There is a great article on moving your VFP aps to Client server in FoxTalk.. it was a two part article.

If you really want to use VFP as a back end data server this means learning a bit about COM, of you could run it as a Web Server ap which your client accesses. See www.west-wind.com on Distributed over HTTP.

BOb