Multiple instances of SIMS client from one RDS server

[Bruce123]

Hi,

 

We a MAT with 3 academies and 2 RDS servers in a farm.

 

We want staff to be able to run any of the 3 instances from the RDS server.

 

We are aware of the changes that can be made to the connect.ini file to allow the user to select the instance from a drop-down menu after opening the SIMS client, but we could not get this working, the dropdown menu would not appear.

 

So what we have done instead is share the SIMS.net folder on each SIMS server and create 3 shortcuts on the RDS server, each pointing to the pulsar.exe on each SIMS server.

 

This seemed to work fine on testing, but the MIS managers have recently reported that the Exams and NovaT modules won't load. The error message is about incorrect connect.ini version.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on this or have a resolution?

 

We could revisit the multi-instance setup, but one downside is that whenever an upgrade is due, we would have to ensure that all 3 SIMS instances are upgraded at the same time, otherwise the client will report "incompatible database". And at the moment, we stagger the upgrades.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Bruce.

[dapaulio]

On the Rds are the permissions on connect.ini write able to the end user accessing sims.

 

On the rds Try use direct connection string in the connect.ini rather than a redirect connect.ini

[sIMSConnection]
ServerName=simsserver\sims2012
DatabaseName=SIMS
CommandTimeout=10000000
DatabaseMode=OnLine

[sIMSDatabases]
FriendlyName0=School 1
Server0=simserver2\sims2014
DatabaseName0=SIMS
DatabaseMode0=OnLine

FriendlyName1=School 2
Server1=simsserver3\SIMS2012
DatabaseName1=SIMS
DatabaseMode1=OnLine