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Intro to Client/Server

Venture is a client/server system. In a client/server system, the actual work done by a computer application is split among several computers that request services from one another. The computer doing the requesting (in this case, your PC) is called the client, and the computer servicing the request is called the server. The requests travel through a series of cables, called the network, which connects all the computers together.

Concept

Think of Venture as if it were a distribution business, where data is the material the business stocks and sells. There are three components of the system: the server, which is the data warehouse; the clients, which are the customers; and the network, which are the roads by which the data is delivered to the clients.

THE SERVER – A DATA WAREHOUSE

Somewhere in your company exists a computer called a server. This computer has very high processing power, and acts as a “data warehouse” for all the business data you and your co-workers work with every day.

HOW THE DATA IS ORGANIZED

Just like any warehouse, the data stored in the server is organized so it can be found quickly, in a database. A database is a collection of records. In database terms, a record consists of all the useful information you can gather about a particular thing. The database stores records on things relating to orders, items, vendors, and customers.

Each piece of information that makes up a record is called a field. For instance, when the Venture server saves an item record in its database (the data warehouse), the item record consists of a number of fields such as the ID, the description, the weight, the cost, and the price.

The Venture server is a special type of database called a relational database. A relational database is one in which data is stored in tables (that is, arranged in rows and columns). Relationships are established between the tables based on common information. For instance, an order table and a customer table might both contain a customer number column that lets you establish a relationship
between them.

SQL

SQL is a standard language for defining and accessing relational databases. In fact, all of the major database servers used in client/server applications work with SQL.

As a result, you can run applications other than Venture, such as report writers, barcode packages, or manufacturing software that can access and use the data on the Venture server. These other applications must support Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC), which is a standard interface accessing SQL databases from applications.

Keeping Data Online

Venture is an interactive online system. That is, information that you enter into, or request from the database is processed immediately, and updates the database at once. This is very different from “batch processing” systems, where batches of transactions are processed all at the same time (usually at night).

Why do you need information that is so up-to-date? For several reasons:

To accurately reflect an item’s stock status.

For example, there are 150 oil filters on hand. One order taker enters an order for all 150 filters. Before the first order is saved, a second order taker enters an order for 50 oil filters.

If the system was not online (also called “real-time”), stock status of the oil filter’s would not be accurate. Both orders could be saved, meaning that you would have to ship 200 oil filters when there are only 150 on hand.

Venture updates stock status information right away – even at the line item level. This means that stock status is updated as soon as the order taker enters the order quantity. If more than one order taker accesses the item’s stock status record at the same time, the system chooses one user at random and makes them pause for a second so that the database remains error-free.

To maintain an up-to-the-minute general ledger.

For example, the Moving Average Cost of an oil filter is $2.30 and there are 100 on hand. A user changes the Moving Average Cost to $2.50. The inventory value for the filters has just gone from $230.00 to $250.00, a difference of $20.00.

If the system was not online, you could not print the general ledger and see the cost variance immediately. You would have to wait until the batch of processes had been run for the day and then check the general ledger.

Venture updates the general ledger with every transaction. As soon as the cost of the oil filters changes, the variance is posted to the general ledger. Balancing the ledger becomes a much easier task.

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