>Hi,
>We have an application that does the following:-
>
>- As a night job, all the tables in a database are zapped and updated with the latest data
>- The users perform diffeernt queries on the database during the day. This is a read only application. It just servers as a window to the database.
>
>Now we are considering providing access to a few contractors to this application. The current plan is use to use a Terminal server. The exe and the database would be on the terminal server and the contractors could use the application via the terminal server. To start with we might have 15 contractors, but eventually this would increase.
>
>1.
>Is Terminal server the right answer to the problem? If so what should be our other considerations?
>

Terminal Server is a potential solution, but it's expensive in terms of server licenses and CALs. If your needs are basically queries, you might well be better off creating a Web page with a search engine implemented as a VFP MTDLL and a standard Web front-end; while it would require some re-writing, the long-term cost of the required TSCALs may well exceed the cost of the re-write, especially since TSCALs need to be renewed annually.

>2.
>Would it be a better solution, to have the exe and the database on the contractors' server? In this case after the database has been updated on our end at night, how do we send the data over to the contractor's server? can we FTP this?
>

You can certainly implement file transfers via FTP, or email, or any of several other file transfer mechanisms; if the need for data currency permits operating based on data from the previous day, this may be an attractive option. There are examples of FTP implementations using Microsoft's ActiveX component for transfer here on UT, as well as potential email-based solutions.
>Any help would begreatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Ria