Hi,
Considering to ditribute an app using the AppBroker or IPdriver.
I have no experience with both. I guess the AppBroker works with html code
send over internet-connection and the IPdriver with instructions send over internet-connection. Which one is more stable and how about speed?
TIA,
Nick
I dont know if the IP Driver Server has been worked on since its release years ago, but sometimes when running the IPDS on a web server, it periodically stop.
I changed the Service options (Win+R) → services.msc → on the Recovery tab to restart automatically after a minute or two, but never got to the bottom of what was killing the service. Sometimes it would restart, sometimes it just hung which required a manual restart.
Its possible, as an exposed port on the webserver, someone might have been sending it a malformed packet or some malicious packet to get it to hang, so it might be better to run the IPDS behind a VPN service, and run the VPN as a UDP stream with minimal encryption to keep the packet sizes down.
Hi,
Thanks! You used the IPdriver long ago?
Can the data-server use SQL or could I better connect to SQL-server directly? Connecting to SQL-Server over internet is probably a bit too
much for my customers.
What is the speed compared to local use?
TIA,
Nick
I don’t know anything about App Broker, I use the IP Driver. When it’s working, it seems to work pretty well. But it is not at all tolerant of connection loss. i.e. if you have your application open and unplug and replug your ethernet cable, the application crashes. Even if it was just sitting there idle.
Not that you’d normally do that, but I have had problems on a LAN when the switch was a little flakey, even though nothing else network-wise was being affected. I don’t think I’d ever consider using it over the internet.
When the IP Driver came out all those years ago, I got it working online from a windows webserver, hosted in the Us first, then the UK govt insisted I move the US server back to the UK!
Knocked up a little app where clarion devs could run it from their part of the world and it connected back to the Web server I had set up.
The conversations took place on SV’s news group server back then, and the net connections around the world werent the best. I seem to remember some of the Aussie devs complaining it was painfully slow, but people in the US and Europe found it acceptable.
Version 2 saw the release of MRP (Multiple Request Packet) to help it in slow network situations which included the internet.
Fast forward a couple of decades and the internet undersea connectors should be alot faster now because there’s more fibre in use and the use of different compression algo’s suited to different types of data make it faster, along with using standard wide band light or the different spectrums of the light wavelength to send more data down a fibre cable.
IP Driver is an interface to different backup database drivers.
The IP Driver enables you to tune the data sent over low speed network connections, so you might see better performance using the IP Driver between the app and SQL server.
Internet speed is always going to be slower than LAN’s unless you have an ethernet internet connection and then you have speeds as fast as LAN’s but thats expensive, but you will see lag if running over the internet.
They are very different approaches, so there are a lot of things in play here.
IPDriver makes few changes to your program - the desktop exe exists as before and it pretty much operates as before. Speed will depend largely on the network connection between the desktop and the server. And most importantly latency. The program is running on the desktop machine as it always has.
With AppBroker the app is running on the server. That means firstly you need an interface layer to present the interface on the client. The app has limited access to local machine resources (like printers.) You will need to do a fair amount of work to the program to make it operate safely in this mode. Your interface might be H5, or AnyScreen. (AnyScreen uses a different thing to AppBroker, but the model is the same.) Or you might just use an external interface, like TS Plus.
I think you need to start with a much clearer understanding of your goals. Only by understanding your goals can you determine which approach (or indeed something completely different) is suitable for your needs.
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Hi Nick
I have different applications that use H5 with the appbroker with the IP Driver, SQL and Topspeed files. I also have a beta application that uses the IP Driver with Anyscreen.
The IP Driver is database driver agnostic so you can use whatever database with it as long as there is a driver for it. SQLite is a great option for archived records. I have also witten applications in the past that use the IP Driver/Server to access MSSQL and Firebird databases.
The appbroker H5 will work with IP Driver, SQL etc etc. It’s about how you want to present the UI. I have a Mobile Phone H5 Application and I also have a couple of H5 applications designed for desktop/tablet browsers. There is also the option of using something like TSPlus for user access.
I use the IP Driver with Capesoft’s Self Service for a Print Manager/Server for clients using my desktop application that makes it very simple for the users when printing. This application restarts itself if the server reboots or there is a connection loss. I have clients who use this with hosted services across the Internet as well and the performance is acceptable. There is no UI on this application.
I do use the IP Driver to do quite a bit in the IP Data server (Loading lookup tables to Memory Driver etc) that improve the performance quite significantly.
For an Application that the user will interact with across the Internet I’d look at H5 (Appbroker), Anyscreen or Capesoft’s Nettalk. You can still use the IP Driver for access from the application to the database if needed (ie if your H5 server and database servers are separate but on the same LAN).
Latency is the big issue for the IP Driver. I have run my Jobcard Back Office across the Internet and it works but depending upon the latency etc it will test the patience of the end user. 
It’s not a case of one or the other, it’s whether there is a reason for the IP Driver/Server as the means of accessing the data. The H5 Appbroker/Anyscreen/Nettalk etc are about how you provide the User Interface and how scalable you require the application to be.
Is the application going to be installed on the clients’ servers or hosted? How many concurrent users to do you expect etc? These questions will help determine suggested approaches.
I hope this helps
cheers
Rohan