APPLICATION SOLUTION

[PDiana]

I am currently employed via a large company with a POS (Point of Sale) application
in each and every one of it's (125) stores. We are considering a POS rewrite
and also considering to use the INTERNET. Our current makeup is a stand-alone
app in each store and nightly uploads to the home office, absolutely no store
to store interfacing. By going to the INTERNET, we understand all of the
BENEFITS but the cost of communications can be very very big. Anyone experience
this and what if any other options are there. I hate to continue to see
us maintaining a seperate DB in each of these (125) store and growing..........

Please advise
Thanks
Patrick

[Constance J. Petersen]

Hi Patrick,

"PDiana" <Pdiana1@aol.com> wrote in message news:3d62609b$1@10.1.10.29...
> I am currently employed via a large company with a POS (Point of Sale)
application
> in each and every one of it's (125) stores. We are considering a POS rewrite
> and also considering to use the INTERNET. Our current makeup is a stand-alone
> app in each store and nightly uploads to the home office, absolutely no store
> to store interfacing. By going to the INTERNET, we understand all of the
> BENEFITS but the cost of communications can be very very big. Anyone
experience
> this and what if any other options are there. I hate to continue to see
> us maintaining a seperate DB in each of these (125) store and
growing..........

How exactly do you want to use the Internet to communicate between stores?

Also, can you explain more about why you would expect the cost of communications
to be very expensive?

--
Constance Petersen, DevX newsgroup section leader
New look; new content: http://www.smartisans.com/
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[Q*bert]

Ever consider terminal services or a Citrix Solution?

It would enable you to provide one central repository for all 125 stores.
Your risk is your internet connection stability. If you loose connection
a store could be down. So you would have to have some redundancy setup if
you take any internet approach; or you could consider a replication database
with failover. In essance they have a local copy of everything and transactions
applied to both the central repository and their local copy. When connectivity
fails, the store still operates locally; when connection is reestablsihed,
all transactions that were missed in the central repository are uploaded.
All the ideas have merit, but not witout thier costs.

"PDiana" <Pdiana1@aol.com> wrote:
>
>I am currently employed via a large company with a POS (Point of Sale) application
>in each and every one of it's (125) stores. We are considering a POS rewrite
>and also considering to use the INTERNET. Our current makeup is a stand-alone
>app in each store and nightly uploads to the home office, absolutely no
store
>to store interfacing. By going to the INTERNET, we understand all of the
>BENEFITS but the cost of communications can be very very big. Anyone experience
>this and what if any other options are there. I hate to continue to see
>us maintaining a seperate DB in each of these (125) store and growing..........
>
>Please advise
>Thanks
>Patrick
>

[Miki Kribus]

Their are lot's of consideration when designing an application with such scale,
More information is required such as
1. Do you need 24/7/365 data sync. Between the stores
2. What is the database size today (records, MG's), what is the database
engine you are using today?
3. Number of transaction each stores perform each day
4. What machines do you have on each store? PII/PIII
5. Budget for the project
More question may come when answers to the above is given.

"Q*bert" <luke_Davis_76@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Ever consider terminal services or a Citrix Solution?
>
>It would enable you to provide one central repository for all 125 stores.
>Your risk is your internet connection stability. If you loose connection
>a store could be down. So you would have to have some redundancy setup
if
>you take any internet approach; or you could consider a replication database
>with failover. In essance they have a local copy of everything and transactions
>applied to both the central repository and their local copy. When connectivity
>fails, the store still operates locally; when connection is reestablsihed,
>all transactions that were missed in the central repository are uploaded.
> All the ideas have merit, but not witout thier costs.
>
>"PDiana" <Pdiana1@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>I am currently employed via a large company with a POS (Point of Sale)
application
>>in each and every one of it's (125) stores. We are considering a POS rewrite
>>and also considering to use the INTERNET. Our current makeup is a stand-alone
>>app in each store and nightly uploads to the home office, absolutely no
>store
>>to store interfacing. By going to the INTERNET, we understand all of the
>>BENEFITS but the cost of communications can be very very big. Anyone experience
>>this and what if any other options are there. I hate to continue to see
>>us maintaining a seperate DB in each of these (125) store and growing..........
>>
>>Please advise
>>Thanks
>>Patrick
>>
>