Freight Management Systems, Inc. P.O. Box 290343 Ft. Lauderdale, Fl 33329
(954) 252-0031 FAX (954) 252-0230
Networking and LOADPLus White paper
Overview
The intention of this paper is to provide the basic concepts of networking that is best suited for LOADPlus in the day to day operations of
your company. This paper assumes a reasonable working knowledge of networking protocols and the basic schemes of today's most common networks.
The paper will cover issues in a relatively basic manner, not getting into high technical detail of situations between the dbms, dataflex language, and
networking.
Protocols - What we should be concerned with:
Even though there are literally hundreds of protocols that are available throughout many networks, the three basic protocols that a network uses are NETBEUI, IPX/SPX, and TCP/IP.
NETBEUI is a protocol that Microsoft has created to be the default protocol for their networking structures. This includes NT Server/Client Networks and Peer to Peer
networks with all flavors of Windows. IPX/SPX is Novell's default protocol for their Netware server/client based networks. TCP/IP is a primarily used for the Internet
even though we do see a movement towards using this protocol as the default protocol across your network. It is important to note that in both Microsoft and
Novell networks, you can run multiple protocols at any one time. It is not uncommon to see these three protocols combined in any order across a network.
LOADPlus - Just a DBMS using Transactions:
A transaction for a LOADPlus user is the result of entering data into the application and choosing to save/update the files. When this occurs, the
database that is being saved to or updated to has to be secure so that users aren't writing to it at the same time. This is done by locking the file.
Locking and Unlocking of a file is basically so fast that you don't notice it, however if for some reason a lock is maintained or is never initiated at all,
LOADPlus can run into problems such as corrupted indexes (indexes are used for searches) or corrupted databases. Because LOADPlus is designed to handle
many different types of business operations there are many databases that run the application. This means that there is constant locking and unlocking
going on in the network.
TCP/IP - Should I use it?
TCP/IP was designed for the internet because it has small packets and is an error correcting protocol. The protocol is a very nice protocol to use for
office to office communications however it does have it's downfalls. TCP/IP is mainly designed to send data through a network fast and accurately. However,
while doing this, it sometimes caches (saves data for later use). This is actually a bad thing to do with LOADPlus because when caching, transactions stay
open and cause corruption. For this reason, we do NOT suggest using TCP/IP as your Main protocol across your network. This however does not mean
not to use it. It is perfectly acceptable to have TCP/IP as a secondary protocol across the network.
NETBEUI , IPX/SPX - Not the perfect solution:
We suggest using IPX/SPX or NETBEUI as your Main protocol throughout your network when using LOADPlus. However, in Windows there are caching problems
that occur with any protocol you use. The Registry disk that is supplied with Release 11 of LOADPlus fixes these problems. If you do not have this disk
installed on all your machines including the server (except for a Netware server) then you can possibly get data corruption even using NETBEUI and IPX/SPX.
It is a vital part of LOADPlus to make sure this is installed.
FAST - Aren't they always supposed to be fast?:
LOADPlus does thousands of transactions throughout any given day. Because of this, the network traffic is high when running LOADPlus. Therefore, the faster
the network, the faster LOADPlus will run. Many older networks were built on 10 mb connections. It is common today to see much faster networks such as 100 mb
networks. This often requires certain types of wiring and network cards. You should check with your hardware manufacturers/suppliers to find out the details
of what kind of network you have and what you would need to be running the fastest possible network.
Terminal Server - Be Careful... Promises aren't always delivered:
In some cases, users have started running a version of Microsoft Windows called Terminal Server. Terminal Server basically lets each workstation run off of
one machine and they just see the screen on their machine. It is a way that the transactions that are usually done through the network only take place on
one machine. We do have successful installations of LOADPlus on Terminal server edition however there have been periods of debugging with these editions.
Do not install terminal server if you do not have a Terminal Server Technician available to your company. Freight Management Systems does support this
edition including white papers or phone support.
Why so Brief and General:
The scope of this paper is to explain the best Networking practices. It is not a How To paper. We expect a network manager or IT department to be responsible
for your companies network. This paper is to be used for suggestive purposes. The following links to other white papers will give very technical
explainations of some of the topics covered here. Unless you are a computer technician, you may not find the following articles of value.
