[dba-SQLServer] Access limitations

Hi Paul

That depends. Which is no answer ...

Problem is, I guess, that no one pushes it that far. You can without doubt have 255 well-behaved users reading from one 1 GB mdb file, but in real life users are not well-behaved, workstations when counted in hundreds fail from time to time, and hardly no database is for reading only. Writing, indeed updating, slows things down.
In the scenarios we've experienced, when you have a user count of a dozen or so your client does run some kind of business and the costs to set up a database server are not prohibiting in any way; a tiny standard entry level server will do and you can use MySQL or the like if the license fee must be zero or SQL Server 2005 Express if no single database is large.

Even if you can get away running a shared JET file, backup of this can cause trouble. Users do not always close down workstations or may be working around the clock. You cannot reliably perform a backup of the mdb file while users are attaching it. This single topic may end the discussion with the client.

/gustav

>>> pauln at sqlserverbible.com 21-03-2008 05:17 >>>
Sure, but like I just told Arthur, that's not Access, that's SQL Server with
a front-end. I've pushed SQL Server to several thousand users and hundreds
of millions of rows in Tb+ databases (at 35K tps). But that doesn't test
Access. 

My question is how far can you safely push Access with just the jet engine? 

It is interesting though that the answers keep coming back as Access+SQL
server. Is that due to the demographics of this group, or is the Access
developer community moving beyond Access as a BE?

-Paul