VPN

autonomy2

Hello support.

My company has approved the construction of an online reporting system for our division using AwareIM on a dedicated server.

Our online reporting system will be used by our building managers managing residential and commercial buildings to log their daily activity reports.

We will also be allowing access to data in AwareIM for non company employees (strata managers, owners, residents) and public access to home pages for each building.

My choice of database is Derby (no admin hassle?) and our dedicated server will be running RHEL behind a firewall.

Before we set up our dedicated server, could I get your opinion on setting up a VPN (remembering that we still need public access for home page etc...) or would a Firewall and AwareIM be sufficient.

Our data will only be building related (no credit card, drivers license or social security details) and of course security is a concern with application speed running close second.

🙂

aware_support

Well, Derby is a good choice - it is quite reliable and easy to back up and administer. It is a little slower than MySQL, though.

Regarding VPN. It is ultimately your company's decision how much security you want. In my personal opinion firewall and Aware IM password protection should be enough in your case. But please don't hold us responsible in court for this recommendation (just joking).

autonomy2

Hello Support.

Thanks for your quick reply. Concerning the Derby vs MySQL, how much difference is there in speed? Would this be due to Derby being a Java database?

Also, I tend to think a VPN at this stage might be an overkill based on our usage and data that we are storing (not critical information).

🙂

aware_support

Yes, the difference in speed is probably due to Derby being Java database. Having said that, it really depends on an operation - for some operations Derby is even faster. In our experience this difference is not very noticeable for most practical work.

ab042

I know nothing about Derby so keep that in mind on my comments. And I'm new to AwareIM.

But I would stongly suggest MySQL for the following reasons.
#1) Its free.
#2) Its fast, regardless of DB size.
#3) There is NO difference in AwareIM in using it.
#4) A lot of great 3rd party apps can access the dataset.

And the biggest reason I would use it. And this has NOTHING to do with Derby or AwareIM. It not if but when something goes wrong with your computer or database and when it does there are hundreds of utilities and thousands of people using MySQL that can help.

Just my 2cents, please take it for what you paid. 🙂