Capacity of Access

[Fletchmeister]

Hi guys!

My understanding of Access is average but could be better. My understanding of it is that it has an SQL background with a front end forms and wizards to make it useable.

My question is that I have heard rumours that it is unstable when it reaches a certain size! What is this, why is this especially if it runs on the top of SQL?

The Company I work for are anti - Access because of this but our IT dept is so slow to produce stuff in SQL which they insist on using. What is the issue? Can anyone shed ant light please!

Fletch

 

[dk]

Hi,

I think the difference you're experiencing is that your IT people wish to use SQL Server (a Microsoft product, the 'Big Brother' of Access which IS more stable, more able and can do more than Access in terms of processing data). However, SQL Server's strength is Access' weakness (and vice-versa). Your average user can produce an Access database in no time at all and it can soon be something which is relied on by your team/department/company. If the database is not well designed (as is often the case) then it soon may not be able to meet the needs of its users. I understand your IT department in not supporting Access (a lot of large companies IT departments don't). They normally have people who specialise in database design/development and are too used to non-IT people coming up with solutions that soon become more hassle than they're worth and then have to spend a huge amount of time coming up with something which a) does what the current system does and b) reconciles back to the old system, even if that was using incorrect assumptions or methods.

Anyway, back to your question! Access will become unstable far more quickly than other more corporate databases if you're storing large numbers of transactions, have a large number of users or want to use it for some heavy processing. The maximum database file size if 2GB and the maximum table size in any one file is 1GB. There's a lot of info in www.deja.com about corrupt Access files.

Access and SQL Server do not 'run on top of SQL'. They're both database management systems and you can use SQL to retrieve, update, change and alter the design of your database. If anything, SQL sits on top of Access and SQL, not the other way around. SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL are examples of server based DBMS' which are designed for corporate/heavy use whereas Access is a desktop based database system only designed for a small number of users (theoretical maximum of 255 but a realistic maximum of much less than this).

Anyway, I've talked enough, hope this helps you