🚀 go-pugleaf

One DBIII / network installation that I am aware or uses an 8mhz pc-at
as a dedicated server (core 72 megabyte hard disk)
with Novell's netware and 3com hardware; The installation runs dbaseIII
nearly exclusively on everything from compaq portables with no  hard disk
(but network card) to compaq 286 portables with 2 hard disks.  Anyway, they
are managing nearly 15000 records of nearly 500 bytes each, with 3 index
files.  All of the workstations (up to 6 at a time) access the common 
database, and the dbase programs were written to take care of record locking
and the like.  

The operation works as follows:		
partially completed records are added into the main database.
at some later time, these blank records are retrieved based upon two fields
of information as the key (referencing yet another file to get one of the
keys), and the additional information is entered.  The retrieval and addition
of data must be fast, since it is done while a person is on the phone.  

The system performance has been pretty good:
Record retrieval happens on a 4.77 mhz compaq for a typical record in under 4
seconds. (one other user on the system)

The information is changed (using a non-dbase program, I might add, since 
DBIII is atrociously slow at checking key inputs in a loop) as fast as the
typist can go, and the record is replaced in the database.  Since a duplicate
of the transaction is kept for later processing, the actual time before 
another record can be changed can take up to 20 seconds longer.

For their application, this system works quite nicely. 
Oh, packing and re-indexing the database (remember, all three indices, 15K
records) done once a day (since everyone else must be logged off) takes
under 10 minutes.   
 
It should not be taking as long to pack and reindex your database, unless
your server or its hard disk is really slow...

Brian K. Moran
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Brian K. Moran  brian@mirror.TMC.COM	
               {mit-eddie, ihnp4!inmet, wjh12, cca, datacube}!mirror!brian
Mirror Systems	2067 Massachusetts Avenue  Cambridge, MA, 02140
Telephone:	617-661-0777 extension 141

"Won't somebody tell me, just who and what I did...
 Why's this ring on my finger, and who's that screaming kid? " 
   From "Lost Weekend" by the Beat Farmers
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