Ideas????

[Jeff Barnes]

I am toying with a new idea for a project and just wanted to get some opinions/ideas on the best way to go about this.

Here is the idea...
There would be a central computer connected to the internet.
Then there would be remote computers that collect data via a serial port.

I would like to be able to send this data from the remote computers, via the internet, in real time, to the the central computer and display the data.
These remote computers would be need to be quick and easy to set up as they would end up at the homes of elderly people. Ideally the software would run off a USB stick so no installation would be required (on the remote side).

Since the remote software would basically be portable, I can't use a VPN.
RDP won't work for me either.

Any ideas?

[Antonio Linares]

Jeff,

For elderly people wouldn't have more sense to use a tablet ?

[Antonio Linares]

They don't have serial ports...

[Jeff Barnes]

I'm not too worried about the hardware at this point.
I'm more looking fir ideas on how to send/receive the data over the internet.

[George]

Jeff,
If a few seconds delay is not a problem maybe you can use a timer to send a file, with the data collected, via FTP to the central computer.

[Jeff Barnes]

I should have mentioned that the data is collected every second and could run for many hours.
It is basically a patient monitoring system.

There isn't a lot of data collected every second.
I'm looking at three parameters every second. Time, heart rate and SPO2.
(ex. 08:30:00, 85, 98)

[fraxzi]

Jeff,

You need database server on the remote pc.
On your client pc it sends data to remote from collected data from serial ports (or maybe dump that data to file first the frequently read). Exploit HB_BackGround functions to send data in your defined intervals. Then you can create whatever reports from the central pc database from your workstation.

If I would be on your case, I use ADS.

Just me 2 cents

[Otto]

Jeff,
>Since the remote software would basically be portable, I can't use a VPN.
>RDP won't work for me either.

Why don’t you use port forwarding only without VPN.
RDP protocol uses TLS internally, so strictly speaking, it provides security level comparable with IPSec VPN and higher than PPTP.

Why does RDP don't work for you.
Best regards,
Otto

[Jeff Barnes]

I am looking to have one program running on the central computer that displays the data from multiple remote computers.
RDP will show one system at a time.

The central computer will have 8 dialog boxes that display the data from each remote system.

[Antonio Linares]

Jeff,

You could use sockets directly. Please review FWH\samples\sockserv.prg and sockcli.prg

[Otto]

Jeff,
This is exactly how our ECR works.
Where do you see the problem with RDP.

Best regards,
Otto

[George]

Jeff,
As suggested by fraxzi the AIS (the ADS remote server) could be helpful in this case.
I would consider having one table, in the data dictionary, per each remote computer.

Regards,

George

[Jeff Barnes]

I will take a look a tsockets...

Otto, I have only ever used RDP to remotely view/control one system at a time.
Do you have an example of what your are doing?

[Otto]

Jeff,
you have to use WINDOWS SERVER remote Desktop role.
Then you can access concurrently the Server with different users.
Every user is working in his own desktop but they all share the same disk.
I think this is what you want.
You can open an Azure test account. This way you do not need to set up your own server.
Best regards,
Otto

[Otto]

Jeff,

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23412&p=127560&hilit=remote+desktop#p127560

Best regards,
Otto