Removal of live-LOG from admin console since FMS17

That’s the point. Give those SAAS licenses only to certified providers. Working with certified partners is an established business model, also for SAAS.

pruning a feature like live stats or live log makes FMS much more expensive - installing Zabbix or other work around costs time to be billed for …
I think this hidden price increase is a mess and unfair.

I don’t disagree. But having done it now, it’s not that bad and has opened up other possibilities and better ways of monitoring a server. Like everyone else does. Also, it’s easier to see long term patterns. Which leads to better development practices.

I understand the argument about less tech-savvy users, but they can just download the log and look at it. And the rest of the stuff doesn’t matter to them anyway. They weren’t using it to begin with.

There are definitely a few features I think need to be added back. But it’s really only a few. Likely by the end of the year, I will likely not log into the admin console again except for a few rare tasks.

@jormond is right about the security issues. The capacity for mischief within a shared environment is very real.

@Torsten, the EULA may have protected the platform provider but I can imagine that the litigation would affect Claris as the software is their responsibility.

@Malcolm, ˋplatform provider’ is meant in the sense of software platform provider, hence FMI.

Well, that’s what lawyers and courts are for: to decide which bits of the contract will be honoured. :grinning:

My point on the shared environment is that it is allowed within SBA. We are SBA, but also have other systems we host, the security is the same on both, so this isn’t really a security issue, it is worry about money.

My biggest concern is that anyone can spin up an AWS instance, install FMS, add their FileMaker files and meet all licensing rules. These people are treated exactly the same as us who are FBA, SBA and have been hosting for over 8 years and invested a huge amount of time and money into security systems over that time. It takes nearly a day to configure a Windows instance to meet our security standards. I could publish one of our server addresses here with the correct administrator username and password and it still wouldn’t be possible to connect to it.

I have argued that other platforms offer a ‘solutions specialist’ or ‘independent software developer’ license, which Claris do not, but despite visits and presentations, again we hit a brick wall.

I do not understand where any litigation would be different for an SBA system or a fully managed server where no customers are given access, as it is fully managed as per the SBA. I would argue that access to a cloud system that is only protected via a web interface, is far more likely to be hacked than one where there is no access via this method, i.e. protected within a secure operating system.

It is what it is, but the reasons being given are not.

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Delivering FMS on Linux would improve security for sure (in the hands of professionals, of course).

There lies the issue Torsten, what is a ‘professional’?

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In this context, a professional is an individual or an organisation that got certified by the platform provider. Of course, if no such certification program is offered, there are no professionals other than the platform provider himself. Honni soit qui mal y pense :wink:.

Hi Torsten

I’m not a believer in certification, I worked with far too many Microsoft MCSE’s in an earlier life and it ruined my opinion of the value of certification which is: ‘you’re qualified as long as everything goes exactly right as per the vendor’s published materials’.

However, I have had a revelation based on your description - with 34 years IT experience from the original 128k Mac, started on Hypercard and FileMaker in the mid to late 1980s, was Operations Manager for a Mac support company, ran a network department alongside for 15 years through the 90s, have clients in Asia, India, The Middle East, Europe, US and Trinidad and Tobago, and have run this company as main sales, technical and marketing since 2004, it turns out I’m not a professional.

If I had time to put aside to prepare and take the exam, I’d rather be investing that time in my own company, my staff, our internal systems, our sales, customer service and technical direction. It comes down to priorities, our priorities not those of others.

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I agree, ‘certified’ does not mean ‘competent’. But it needs some sort of standardisation and a certification is a least common denominator. For the rest it is a customer’s choice with whom he decides to work.

P.S. I am not a professional, too.

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@AndyHibbs and @Torsten you are not professionals, I am not a professional, but we are Pros :smiley:.

And there are Cons.

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