Quickbooks Enterprise (IIS) AND NetTalk webserver

[springguy]

I have a customer that is running NetTalk web server (actually the Host exe in front of the webserver), and they want to bring Quickbooks Enterprise which is currently hosted by a third party on an IIS server in house on the same server that the NT web server is running on.

Can this be done? - running the NT web server on the same physical server as IIS which is hosting QB Enterprise.

What strategy do I need to employ to allow the customer to have the NT webserver app and the QB Enterprise app in house?  Multiple servers?  Different ports?  etc?

Thanks for your advice,
Mike Springer

[Bruce]

Hi Mike,

>> Can this be done? - running the NT web server on the same physical server as IIS which is hosting QB Enterprise.

yes. As long as IIS and NetTalk are either bound to different IP addresses, or are listening on different ports.

>> What strategy do I need to employ to allow the customer to have the NT webserver app and the QB Enterprise app in house?  Multiple servers?  Different ports?  etc?

Perhaps a little more information is helpful here. Are only LAN users accessing these systems? Or are "outsiders" connecting to these systems from outside the LAN - coming in via their ADSL router or whatever?

cheers
Bruce

[springguy]

Hey Bruce,

>>Perhaps a little more information is helpful here. Are only LAN users accessing these systems? Or are "outsiders" connecting to these systems from outside the LAN - coming in via their ADSL router or whatever?

On the NT server, obviously this is being accessed over the internet.  However, it's databases will also be accessible via a LAN based clarion app running on the server.

On the Quickbooks Enterprise system, it is accessed via the internet via RDP.  There are actually about 30 separate QB Enterprise databases and programs each being accessed by one or two users via RDP.

So, in both the NT app and the QB app, the users access the apps over the internet via a router.  Additionally, the NT databases will be accessed via a LAN through a clarion app.

Mike

[bijan]

Hi Mike,

By default your RDP users will be accessing port 3389. You have to check to see if they have a different port used for this. With lots of visitors accessing your NT server app, I would recommend using port 80 or 443(https). There are companies out there that will only allow access to these main common ports. If these 2 ports are being used on the main IP address then you would need to get a secondary IP and bind your NT App to this IP.

If you know who would accessing the NT app and the users are limited I would just use a different port on the main IP address. You can always help them configure their firewalls.

HTH

Bijan

[Bruce]

I agree with this.
(Although not 100% sure how your Quickbooks users will access the Quickbooks IIS version via RDP)

cheers
Bruce

[springguy]

I'm told that Quickbooks Enterprise requires Terminal Services on the server and the clients are accessing it via RDP through Terminal Services. 

So, as I understand it, I will have a static IP set up for the NT server and bind the app to that IP, and also have Terminal Services running on the server to handle the Quickbooks app on a different IP with both using port 80.  Sound right?

I love how the Host.exe program as a font end to the NT server works, and will actually be using that setup for the NT side of it.
Mike Springer

[Bruce]

Hi Mike,

I'm not a QuickBooks guy - but you might want to find someone who really understands what is happening and pin down some specifics.

If you are accessing the server via RDP (Terminal Services) then I would expect the user to be simply running the QuickBooks program at that point. I guess they could access IIS and use "Quick Books Web" but it seems like a really round-about way to do it.
So to really answer your question completely I'd need to know more about exactly how they're setting it up.

>> So, as I understand it, I will have a static IP set up for the NT server and bind the app to that IP, and also have Terminal Services running on the server to handle the Quickbooks app on a different IP with both using port 80.  Sound right?

Well not really. Terminal Services does not use Port 80 (as far as I know). The default port for RDP is 3389 - although I suppose it could be changed to be port 80. If they have changed it to port 80 you would have to determine then how to bind Terminal Services Server to a specific IP address.

There is another point worth raising here. Users who access a machine via RDP consume a _lot_ of resources on the machine. This is typically why the max users which can be done over RDP is somewhere between 10 and 30 users per server. Running a web server (or indeed _anything_) on a box like this will result in vastly (and I mean _vastly_) reduced performance of the web server. Typically simple math(*) gives you clues - if 10 users are connected you can divide stuff by 10. So 2 gigs of ram becomes 200MB per user, 3GHz machine becomes 300MHz and so on.

(*) the actual calculation is a lot more complicated - but it serves as a useful rule-of-thumb.

Personally I'd almost never recommend sharing a web server (or database server, or indeed any server) on a machine that is designed to have regular Terminal Services access of more than a couple of users.

cheers
Bruce

[springguy]

Thank you, Bruce.
This was very helpful to setting me off in the right direction.
Mike