Kindly help, am i able to transfer a data file of the server version from one computer to another or also run the server version on an external hard drive?
Just to clarify what i mean by data file is the actual software being moved from one computer to another. Ideally my manager server version software runs a desktop as server. I would like to change to laptop as my server.
In my opinion a very strange choice. I would advise you strongly to use a VPS.
Yes
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Run the old Manager server and save a backup from the old server
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Run the new Manager server and Import the backup
@Patch you mean to say that i have to buy a new server version of manager onto a laptop right. Well i thought there was a way one could extract the software from one pc to another with no cost implications
Hi @eko. Which VPS do you recomend. I am in southern region of Africa
@Mule1, your questions suggest you may be better served by the cloud edition rather than the server edition. The server edition is for those who have the IT skills to answer such questions themselves or have access to IT support personnel who understand installation and operation of server systems. The long-term costs of the cloud edition are actually less when you consider periodic renewal of your server license (to continue getting updates after one year) and IT support costs.
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As far as VPS provider is concerned there are many factors in play. The location of the data-centers, given data protection Europe-based is preferable over US-based. The scalability of the VPS, is it easy to add more kernels, RAM, SSD disk space, etc. Your budget and ICT skills as a bare-bones VPS just starts with a terminal prompt. It also depends on what OS you install, we use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS but maybe you prefer Windows server. How the VPS is being backed up, etc. There are many good providers and it is a matter of budget. Manager does well on low-spec VPS as long as the number of users and businesses, and the data-size of these businesses are not excessively large.
Server edition license is to be used on a single server. We choose Manager because of the ability to store the sensitive data on our own server, have multiple business requiring multi-user authentication, plan when we update to a newer version based on messages on this forum, and have good ICT capacity to harden and protect the server from hacks. If you do not have advanced ICT skills or support you should use the Cloud edition as @Tut recommended.
The free desktop version can be installed on as many computers you like. If you do not need multi-user authentication of the cloud and server editions you should consider installing desktop versions on any computer you want and store the data to a cloud-based data storage and assign the Manager Desktop file location to that cloud storage. All these computers with free desktop versions can then access the same data-files.
Remember that for any version be it cloud, server or desktop with or without cloud-based data regular backups of your business data must be made and ideally held in two-different fysical places to avoid any potential unrecoverable data disaster.
The process I described above applies to all Manager versions on all hardware. You will need to your IT advisor to determine what hardware would work best for you.
I thought Manager server licensing was not locked to particular hardware, so the license could be transferred if you change hardware.
I suspect you are correct after accounting for in-house IT expertise.
Be aware that using the free Desktop edition to access a business file stored in the cloud, could give rise to data corruption if two different PCs try to access the file at the same time
The Desktop edition does not support multiple access
The database structure of desktop, cloud and server are identical except for multi-user authentication. Reading and writing to the datafiles is similar across. As far as I know data would not be corrupted, however hard one would try. It works well but the real weakness of this is that you need to be sure that only those you want to use these datafiles need to have secure computers (desktop and laptops) that do not allow access by unauthorised parties to avoid security issues including data theft and destruction.
I understand that the database structure is the same but server and cloud edition will have mechanisms to ensure that two different users do not try to update the same record simultaneously - for example editing the same customer or sales invoice
I do not think that the Desktop version contains such controls
In this guide it says:
The cloud & server version allow multiple users to access one copy of Manager application to access one copy of the Manager business file. The single copy of the Manager program file handles record locking internally.
If you try to emulate this with the desktop version that would result in two users running two copies of the Manager desk top version to access one copy to the Manager data file. For that to work a different record locking mechanism would be required. Trying to access a single Manger data file from two programs would be untested, unsupported and likely to corrupt the Manager data file at random times.
I tested this with multiple desktop and laptops on a cloud folder and had no issues because the database will not accept simultaneous actions but each action is actually taking extreme little time and several connections share on and of times in miliseconds not giving the idea of too much latency. Furthermore it prevents data corruption as it will write one by one.