FME Server allows you to run workspaces that were developed in FME Desktop on a server, either ad-hoc or automatically. This has a number of benefits:
- Thanks to FME Server's web interface you can run the workspace without the need of a locally installed FME Desktop. In fact, the person running the workspace doesn't necessarily have to know anything about FME at all.
- You can run the workspaces on a trigger, this can be a schedule, an incoming message or email, a file being copied somewhere etc.
- You can chain multiple workspaces together
- It comes with a queuing mechanism, allowing you to prioritize workspaces
- It's easily scaleable by adding extra engines (or dynamic engine processing time)
This means you can automate a lot of the processing, saving you time.
A real-life situation that we often discuss at our FME Server training courses is this one:
One of our customers had 4 floating licences, which were being used by 6 people actively developing FME workspaces and around 20 people occasionally needing to run a standard workspace. Every morning the developers tried to get in early and start FME so they'd claim a license for the day. That meant that on a very regular basis people had to go look for a colleague who had an FME license in use and ask them to "quickly run this workspace for me". This cost them quite a lot of time. So for a month they kept track of how often that happened and that number was so high that they immediately decided to buy FME Server.
"4 floating licences" -> for FME Desktop, of course.
@aalmandhri Lot's more on FME Server here. I would recommend that you contact your local FME partner and they can discuss the configuration and licensing of FME Server that would align with your needs.