When your organization uses FontAgent© Pro Server, users always have a copy of the fonts they need, whether they’re at their desks, telecommuting from home, in a hotel or on an airplane. Even if your network or font server hardware fails, you and FontAgent Pro still deliver font management power to keep everyone productive.

FontAgent Pro Server includes a new, multi-threaded architecture that takes full advantage of Apple’s new Intel-based, multi-core Macintosh platforms, delivering a five- to ten-fold increase in font-server speed and scalability. The advanced, efficient architecture supports libraries with tens of thousands of fonts and eliminates I/O bottlenecks that slow down users and tie up servers.

You can trust that the fonts from FontAgent Pro Server will work. It uses the industry’s most mature font integrity checking, which is embedded in the FontAgent Pro connected client. Administrators import new fonts into the client software where they are scrubbed and optimized, and then upload them to the font server. Later, when the server syncs with client machines, it verifies that each download transaction completes correctly, preserving the integrity of each user’s font database.

The network architecture of FontAgent Pro Server is optimized for speed and reliability. Put simply, uploading and downloading fonts from a connected client is as fast as your network allows. Each time users sync, the FontAgent Pro client connects to the font server and determines in a second which fonts and sets it needs. The client then downloads the fonts and sets required to synchronize it with the server—so after the first sync session, updates occur almost instantly.

FontAgent Pro Server performs smart, incremental updates of font libraries on both clients and servers. The compact updates use little network bandwidth and occur at blazing speeds, supporting everyone in the organization, even remote and traveling users utilizing low bandwidth connections.   The smart synchronization module in FontAgent Pro enables users to sync with the font server manually on-demand or automatically at specified intervals. When a smart-sync occurs, the server sends compressed fonts to each user in a background process so they can keep working without interruption or performance degradation. If a user is a server administrator, FontAgent Pro also uploads any fonts or sets being published to the font server at the same time.

When the FontAgent Pro client synchronizes with the font server, it first downloads newly available fonts. If new sets are also available on the server, the client checks to make sure the fonts contained in the set reside on the client, informs the user of any missing fonts, and then downloads the set definition.

FontAgent Pro Server 2.5 stores purchase and license information for purchased fonts so organizations can ensure they can manage and re-order fonts easily. The Server also tracks license usage and sends warnings to administrators if license limitations are exceeded.

Simple Server Administration

Administering the FontAgent Pro Server is easy and requires no special software or hardware. To administer the font server, a user with administrative privileges logs in from a connected FontAgent Pro client and a new menu command appears.

The new release includes an all-new, more efficient transport layer that uses open-standard XML and TCP/IP to provide important configuration and maintenance benefits. The new communications stack allows admins to automate disk-image distribution of FontAgent Pro software to client machines across large networks, as well as the use of custom ports for tighter security control, including http-standard port 80. And to ease administration of large user communities and to provide users mobility, new FontAgent Pro Server permits the same user to login from more than one client machine at the same time.