Networking Requirements

Introduction

RESUMate can function as a single-user application, installed on your own PC, or as a fully shared network application installed on many workstations.

Local Area Networking vs Wide Area Networking (including VPN)

In a network environment, RESUMate operates as a file-server based application, not a client-server application. Most of the processing of data (adding or editing records, searching the file, etc.) is handled on the local machine, with the server acting only as a storage device.

Because of this, RESUMate is only supported when run on a local area network (LAN), not on a wide area network (WAN), including most virtual public networks (VPN). As your database file size grows, the network bandwidth required to send the contents of the database from the server to the client is just not typically available in a WAN or VPN environment.

If you need to remotely access RESUMate, please see the following knowledge base article discussing this: http://www.resumate.com/tn_remote_access.asp

Wireless Local Area Networks (802.11b/g)

Some customers have reported problems running RESUMate on a wireless LAN, especially with slower 802.11b network cards and routers. Other customers seem to be able to run in this environment without any problems. If you are experiencing problems, we suggest you (at least temporarily) try running your network with standard Ethernet wiring, if possible, to see if this clears up the problem.

Supported Servers

Most of our customers run some variation of Windows on their fileserver. If you are running a current version of Windows (Vista, XP, NT, 2000, or 2003 Server), then we strongly recommend disabling Opportunistic Locking on the server. You can see a full knowledge base article describing this here: http://www.resumate.com/tn_oplocks.asp

If you are sharing the database file with just a few other users (2 or 3), then running a peer-peer network (where one workstation also acts as a server) is typically ok. If you need to share the database with more than a few users, we strongly recommend you do this with a dedicated file server.

Unsupported Servers

In the past, a few customers have tried running RESUMate with the database stored on MacOS servers, Linux servers, or some network attached storage (NAS) devices, like Snap servers. Most of these customers have quickly run into problems ranging from difficulties logging in two simultaneous users, to full database corruption.

RESUMate is not supported on these types of servers.

Server Hardware Requirements

For small to medium sized installations (less than 10 or so users), almost any new machine running a current version of Windows can operate as a server. For larger installations, we recommend that you consult with your network administrator in order to asses your overall network needs. RESUMate itself is written in Visual Basic, and its database file is stored in a Microsoft Access format. In terms of predicting server loads, you can assume they would be similar to running Access across the network for the same number of users.

For client workstation hardware requirements, please see the following knowledge base article: http://www.resumate.com/tn_hw_req.asp

Hard Drive Space

Databases with a few thousand candidate records will typically be between 20 and 50 megabytes in size. Files with tens of thousands of candidates will be anywhere between 150 megabytes and 400 megabytes, depending on the average length of any included resumes, notes, or other data.

Opportunistic Locking

If you will be sharing your RESUMate database from a machine (desktop or server) running any version of Windows, it is highly recommended that you disable Opportunistic Locking on that machine. Failing to do this may result in database corruption over time. Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article describing the details of Opportunistic Locking here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/296264

To simplify the process, you can download and run the following utility:
http://www.resumate.com/binfiles/set_oplocks.exe

Please note that this only needs to be done on the Windows machine acting as the server, not on any client machines accessing that server.

Sharing a Database on Vista Machines

Make sure all Vista machines have Service Pack 1 applied. If SP1 is not applied, there may be issues getting the database to open on more than one client machine simultaneously. For more information, please see the FAQ TechNote, here: http://www.resumate.com/tn_faq.asp#VistaSharing