Francisco H Tapia
my.lists at verizon.net
Wed Mar 31 15:41:24 CST 2004
> Martin Reid said the following on 3/31/2004 12:49 PM: > >> If your employer/customer asked you to move all your Access databases >> onto a >> central SQL Server what problems other than code rewrite would you >> bring up? > As with anything in what we do, "it depends". There is more than just code re-write especially if any of the suspected databases are not full normalized, and possibly need to be. Many times there is duplicated data across many databases in an organization because many sprouted through departmental needs rather than enterprise. This is in addition to the overhead of simply normalizing your databases individually, now you're looking at possibly consolidation throughout the many databases. There are space constraints on the servers as well, thus proper planning and space allocation planning is a must. >> What would stop you doing this or maybe think twice before starting? > A consolidated effort of this magnitude, imnsho requires full understanding of the mission each database had in mind when it was created. By this I mean what was the purpose of having yet another MDB (or dbx or whatever). The answers help shape the path and scope of the project. Often writing a full Spec sheet on each database will ease understanding. But as has been my experience w/ the users of such databases, the critical points are often missed. >> One of the areas I am looking at is performance and issues surrounding >> redesign. for example at the university we have many small Access dbs >> which >> duplicate student data. It would be fairly easy to remove this >> duplication >> by moving them to SQL Server and linking to a core set of data making it >> very easy for us to mange this type of installation. > performance is depends on a really good dba. Things such as IO, disk controllers, cpu's and bandwidth all affect it. So if you don't have a dba, or one w/ very little skills, then your Sql Server architecture is in great peril. -- -Francisco