Apparently dealing with server issues at the Lab is harder than anywhere else.
If I was installing things at my ISP, I'd call up the sysadmin guy and say "please make me a database," and they'd have it done in an hour, and we'd be good to go.
That is apparently not how things work here.
This frustrates me because I don't know where the truth of it really lies.
My next step is to either get a demo by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, or start from scratch with a new consultant more familiar with the technical needs of this kind of software.