Web Based Software

An IT company has almost develeped a new web based financial sofware package for us, that has a web based front end and has a microsoft sequel server back end. In the version they have given us, it seems to be very slow because of web access issues in the rural area where we operate from

Q. I know nothing about programming, but is it a huge task or a simple task to change the front end from being web based to being PC based ie do they have to re-write the code from scratch costing a fortune or is it a "few" small changes. I am not technically minded

The solution is a simple one : move the back-end data-base and data-base server software in-house so it's accessed locally rather than remotely.

("Locally" can mean on the same PC as the front-end or on your in-house network)

"is it a huge task or a simple task to change the front end from being web based to being PC based" - It is a big task as a lot of the software would need to be re-written from scratch.

But as mathepac mentioned an easier route would be install the software on a web server in your office. Whether or not the company will do that is a different question.

So basically its on an intranet??

Thanks for your help!

The type of front end or user interface does not need to change whether you run the application from the PC you are working on, a local server in the office or remotely from a central server.

There are many recent emerging approaches to software in the areas of cloud computing and SAAS (Software as a Service). The goal of these is that you get the tools that you need to do your work and you don't worry about IT maintenance or capacity as you share infrastructure. These involve accessing tools and applications over the web. There are many benefits but they certainly do not suit every application or user.

What is interesting from your note is that you say that the IT company developed the software package for you. If that is the case, it should be built to meet your specific needs. If the internet connection is limited from your office, this should have been considered in the design of the system. Applications can be optimised in many ways to deal with limited bandwidth.

The important thing to figure out is whether you want the hardware and the software running in your office and you have the skills to look after it? Is it only the people in that office that need to access it or are there multiple locations? Do you want the data hosted outside your office to use online backup or do you want to keep your data within your office?

How bad is your internet connection, do you know the speed? DO you usually have problems accessing the internet?

The op hasn't given enough information

So its a web based system......are you hosting it on the web, or on your local area network ?
If its on your local area network, then the fact that you are in rural location is irrelevant......

Even if its hosted on the web, and you're living in the sticks, with dial up say, the speed problem is probably not due to slow internet access, because with web apps, the amount of data passing over the internet is not a lot, just html pages....(perhaps a few jpegs thrown in)


Look, there are many reasons why your application could be slow. Here are a few.
1. Your database could be a bottleneck, perhaps your web server application is spending too long waiting for the data to come back from the database management system (sequel server). This could be because of a badly designed database or badly written queries, or an underpowered machine or a 100 other reasons.

2. Your webserver could be a bottleneck
The code for you app runs on a webserver. Maybe the bottleneck is there. Could be that the webserver is running on an underpowered machine, or a machine with too much other stuff running on it. Or too many people accessing it at the same time. Normally it is more likely that the problem is with the dbms than the webserver.

is it a big problem to change the app to be a local ap running on the pc ? Yeah it normally is.... but you need to find out why it's slow.......and its very unusual to change an app from being a web app to a pc app

Your system probably needs a bit of fine tuning, and it'll be fine, ask the people who developed it to get it working faster

Could be the internet access but it might be something else.

The OP need to go back to the IT Company to get it sorted. They should be able to pinpoint the exact cause and resolve it.

Incidentally the speed of the system should be in the specification for the design of the application and meeting those performance criteria should have been part of the contract.

Thanks a million for your help. Clearly the various respondents have given this a lot of thought. The bottom line is that I was concerned that we had made a fundamental mistake in opting for web based as opposed to PC based, but it is clear that in fact there are lots of things that can be modified and looked into.

Thank you again