Single user /  Shared network /  Data Portal

There are 3 different ways to configure AyaNova for your environment

Single user “embedded Firebird” configuration

Figure 1

This is the default configuration when installing AyaNova.  It is suitable for a single user on one computer.  The database can not be shared in this configuration.

This is the simplest configuration and does not require any other software or special configuration changes to use right away.

In this configuration AyaNova uses a special Firebird database server called an “embedded” server that is included with AyaNova.  The embedded server is limited to one user at a time and the database file must be on a local drive.

The embedded database file used in this configuration is exactly compatible with the full Firebird database server so it’s easy to scale up from a single user to a shared network configuration.

Shared local area network configuration

Figure 2

This configuration allows multiple users to share a single AyaNova database.  A database server is required for this configuration.

A single stand alone database server as shown in Figure 2 above is not necessarily required; a workstation could also be running the database server software for smaller networks with few users.

AyaNova has been carefully designed to be hardware scalable.  What this means is there is virtually no practical limit to the number of users running AyaNova, the only limiting factor is the speed and capacity of the hardware.

Data Portal configuration

Figure  3

This configuration allows remote users to connect to the AyaNova database via a “Data Portal”.  The purpose of the Data Portal is security: it can be placed outside a network’s firewall so that the corporate database server is not exposed to the internet.

A data portal is simply a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) that hosts a portion of the AyaNova program that would normally run on your workstation.

This allows a remote user to use the same AyaNova.exe program on their remote computer as that used by local users inside the corporate network, continuing to share the same database.  Note that we do not mean a web browser; we mean the windows program itself.  (A web version of AyaNova is in the works however.)

In the diagram (figure 3) above local users still connect directly to the database server, only remote users connect via the Data Portal.

Note that a remote user could connect to the database server directly however other methods of security should be implemented.

You can also connect directly to the database remotely rather than using the data portal if that is more appropriate to your network, and you are comfortable with setting up proper security on your database server and network for protection

WBI (Web Browser Interface)

Figure 4

Brief outline of the WBI features can be found on the WBI (Web Browser Interface) web page

The AyaNova WBI (Web Browser Interface) works with Microsoft Information Server (IIS) to host the web pages that connect to the licensed networked AyaNova database.

The WBI files and IIS can reside on the same computer where the AyaNova database resides, or on a separate computer - as long as within the same local area network.

When a user enters the URL to your WBI server in their web browser and logs in, they are accessing the "pages" WBI provides to obtain access to your database.

Whereas the DataPortal (figure 3 above) is for remote users running the AyaNova program locally, remote users accessing via WBI need only a web browser and an Internet connection.