Big Business Mac Server is software you run on one computer to connect many users.
Big Business Client is software each user runs to connect to share data and add entries. Mac Client and Windows Client can both be used from a variety of current computers.
This chapter describes the setup and benefits of this design and control it gives you.
Big Business Server is the multi-user version of Big Business, the integrated business management tool from bigbusiness.com. Big Business Server is based on a client/ server architecture that supports multiple simultaneous users all your employees can access current information from the server.
Client / server architecture divides data processing between the client and the server. The division of labor between these two parts is transparent to users. The client part is located on the user computers. Its responsibility is to display the Big Business interface and to query the server in response to user actions.
The server part is located on a designated server computer. Its responsibility is to store and manage data and provide services to the client computers across a network. To search for a set of customers, for example, users ask the client to locate certain customer cards. The client sends the request to the server, which executes the search on the server machine and returns the resulting customer cards to the client.
The benefits of client/ server architecture are increased efficiency and speed. Work is divided between the clients and the server and is intelligently managed to reduce the amount of network passes. The less network traffic, the faster the entire system works. Because all data is stored on the server, each client has immediate access to up-to-the-minute data.