Changes

FileMaker does support creating a website from the database. You would normally need to purchase their server product for this purpose. [1] <ref>http://www.filemaker.com/support/technologies/web.html</ref> Previously the "Advanced Server" product was required, but as of March 2008, it looks like the regular server product can listen to API calls [2]<ref>http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/up-to-speed-with-the-filemaker-php-api/</ref>. The problem with using their server product at all is that it creates more product complexity in our infrastructure which means it's problematic to deploy and administer (e.g. it may package PHP and Apache which makes it hard to deploy extensions and patches along with our other infrastructure.) There are many open questions beyond cost and complexity such as performance and customization. In at least one source, it is stated that customizations of the product API are both not possible, and against the terms of the product license.

It is possible to connect to the database using a local ODBC client [3] <ref>http://www.filemaker.com/support/technologies/odbc.html</ref> (on the same host as the db) however, for a lot of practical reasons (like the server is not a server class host, and we wouldn't want to get into master/slave replication), this will not work for us. So, we would need to use the Advanced Server product in order to use Filemaker as a db backend if we were using ODBC.

=== Footnotes References ===<prereferences /> [[1Category:database]] http://www.filemaker.com/support/technologies/web.html[2[Category:PHP] http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/up-to-speed-with-the-filemaker-php-api/[3] http://www.filemaker.com/support/technologies/odbc.html</pre>