Which ShareWay IP should I use?

The most frequently asked question we get about ShareWay IP is "which edition of ShareWay IP should I use -- Personal, Standard or Professional?" Here is a chart and some answers to that question.

Scenario	Personal	Standard	Professional
Single File Sharing	X	x	x	Centralized server management	X
SLP proxyiļg			X
Many File Sharing	X	x	x
Single AFP server		X	X
Many AFP servers		x	X

X = recommended, x = possible

If you have a single Macintosh, running the Mac's built-in File Sharing, and want to make that Mac's hard disk available over the Internet or your intranet, you should use ShareWay IP Personal Edition. If you are running Mac OS 9, a basic version of ShareWay IP Personal is included with the OS. However you should still consider upgrading to ShareWay IP Personal 3.0, which provides advanced security and other features.

If you want to provide centralized IP accessibility for a number of AFP (AppleShare-compatible) servers from a single Macintosh and you have AppleTalk connetivity to those AFP servers, you should use the Professional Edition. The Professional Edition is the only edition which supports multiple AFP servers from a single Macintosh.

SLP proxying is only available in the Professional Edition. If you want to add ShareWay IP's dynamic browsing capabilities to other IP-based file servers, such as AppleShare IP, or if you want to make servers outside your intranet more easily accessible within the intranet, you need the Professional Edition's SLP (Service Location Protocol) proxying feature.

If you have a number of Mac's using File Sharing on your network, you probably want to use the Personal Edition, although in some situations the Professional Edition may be more appropriate.

- Assuming your File Sharing machines are on an IP network, installing one copy of the Personal Edition (available in volume and site licenses) on each File Sharing server will provide better performance than a single copy of the Professional Edition. This is because, as shown below, use of the Professional Edition will result in added network traffic, since data will need to traverse both the IP and the AppleTalk networks. Installing a copy of the Personal Edition on each machine eliminates the extra traffic, in addition to distributing overall CPU utilization and eliminating a central point of failure.

- Use of the Professional Edition in this situation may be appropriate if the personal file sharing servers are relatively lightly utilized, all have AppleTalk connectivity, and if your principal objective is to centralize management of those servers in one place or to obtain access statistics on those servers.

- If your File Sharing machines are not on an IP network, then you should use the Professional Edition, since otherwise you would need multiple copies of the Standard Edition (the Personal Edition will not work without IP connectivity to the personal file sharing server).

If you are going to be supporting AppleShare servers or AFP servers on non-Macintosh platforms such as Windows NT or Unix, you should probably use the Professional Edition, supporting all such servers with AppleTalk connectivity through one or more Macintoshes running that Edition. One Macintosh will often be sufficient, depending on load (see the next section).

NOTE: All versions of ShareWay IP communicate with their supported server(s) through AppleTalk. If you do not have an AppleTalk network installed, or only have limited pockets of AppleTalk, the Professional Edition's ability to support multiple AFP servers will be limited, since it can only support those servers with which it can communicate over AppleTalk (or a server running in the same machine as ShareWay itself). In these cases, it may be more economical to purchase one copy of the Standard Edition (or Personal Edition for personal file sharing) for each server.

Please send any additional questions you may have to shareway@opendoor.com. Thank you for your continuing support.