[AccessD] Access and SQL Server

Stuart McLachlan stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Sun Feb 27 08:33:01 CST 2011


A few thoughts on your questions:

There is really no such thing as an SQL Server app.  SQL Server is a RDMS, not an 
application development environment. You still need some sort of development enviroment 
for the front end, up to you whether you use a web server and PHP or ADO.net, VB.Net, C#,  
Access, PowerBasic or anything else which is you feel is appropriate.

An SQLServer/Access is no more complex than an  Access FE/BE app if you just use ODBC 
links to the SQL Server tables.   That is all that you need sometimes.   I tend to use Access 
this way for reporting applications.  

I generally don't use Access as the FE for data *management"  since you should not as rule  
use linked table and bound forms to maintain data in SQL Server,  you should be using 
CRUD (create, read, update, delete) stored procedures for this which implies going 
"unbound".  I  use PowerBasic/SQLTools  for these applications.

A major reason for using  SQL Server is user security now that MS have depreciated it in 
Access.

I update the same way that I update an Access FE/BE application.  A user runs the FE by 
clicking on shortcut to a batch/cmd file or small application which copies the latest version of 
the FE to a local drive and then opens it.   Updates to the BE are made by building a small 
Updater application which modifies the backend database using ODBC with CREATE and 
ALTER statements.  

-- 
Stuart


On 27 Feb 2011 at 5:43, Tony Septav wrote:

> Hey All
> Well I have spent a couple of weeks now fooling around with ACCESS and
> SQL Server. Using fairly complex pass through queries, ADO connections
> with stored procedures and Views, I have still to buy Susan's book to
> answer some of my under lying questions. Other than being prepared for
> a client's request to use SQL Server, I keep asking myself when would
> I need to use this.  Only a few of my applications I have out there
> are dealing with records greater than a million. Because the apps are
> user specific I don't usually have more than 10 users on a network.  I
> don't think any of my clients (including the big companies) know what
> SQL Server is. In fact I have produced only one app for a client that
> linked into an Oracle database (that is the flavour in my area not
> SQL).  Yes I know SQL Server has hundreds of nifty little features
> that ACCESS doesn't, many activities use a SQL Server link (Web
> Pages), so it begs the question "Should I be learning how to develop 
> a SQL Server app from the bottom up?"
> 
> What I am finding is that an ACCESS/SQL Server app becomes very code
> intensive (forms, queries, etc) much more so than just using ACCESS.
>
> My question to those of you proficient in using ACCESS and SQL Server,
> how exactly are you applying it? Are you producing major apps dealing
> with millions of records? Are you producing major apps dealing with
> hundreds of users? How do you go about distributing changes to an
> ACCESS/SQL Server app?
> 
> 





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