Cost of Converting to SQL Backend

[austin3515]

Currently utilizing an access database for ~30 people. Question - about what would you expect it to cost to upgrade to SQL backend? It's a pretty substantial program with probably 100 forms and 100 reports, etc. I got a quote recently and I just fell out of my chair...

 

[6StringJazzer]

Access uses SQL. What do you mean by "SQL backend"? Do you mean port Access to a server-based database like MySQL or SQL Server, to connect to a web front end?

Porting the schema (tables) would be pretty easy. However, the forms and reports would all have to be redeveloped from scratch. Without seeing your database, I would estimate an hour of work for each form and report, that's 200 hours, at let's say $75/hour, so $15,000 would be my rough order-of-magnitude estimate. That includes minimal design since they are already developed, but includes a lot of requirements definition to understand what everything is supposed to do, setting up a development environment, coding, testing, user acceptance testing.

 

[Kyle123]

And I reckon that you could at least treble what @6StringJazzer has quoted, if you got that done for $15k I'd be impressed (unless it was someone very junior or desperate!)

 

[RoryA]

If you only want to connect the Access front end to SQL Server, I'd have thought it would be a lot cheaper.

 

[Kyle123]

Indeed, there's a wizard for that (for SQL server at least) though I think it needs some tweaking afterwards. Licencing for a full copy of SQL server however...

(though azure may be cheaper)

 

[RoryA]

Perhaps the Express version would suffice?

 

[Kyle123]

Possibly, depends on the reason for the upgrade, it supports up to 10GB database size now, but artificially limits ram usage to 1GB and a single CPU core - as a rule of thumb, it's a good idea to be able to hold your database in ram ? horses for courses

 

[xenou]

1) What's the main idea behind the decision to change to SQL server? This makes a difference in terms of if it's just "getting a bigger database" vs "getting better performance, better security, better concurrency, better maintenance, or better scalability"... etc etc.

2) See if you can break the quote down into something more specific. What's the cost of the sql hardware/software? What's the expected amount of time investing in the key parts of the job (creating backend tables, migrating data, testing functionality, setting up user profiles, fixing forms or reports that don't work anymore).

Part 2 can really be affected by part 1. If you are trying to redesign the system to work better you may need to spend time with forms and reports. If you just want to change the BE then maybe you can just drop in a new server backend.


Note that there can be two costly pieces here:
1) SQL Server (if you can't use SQL Server Express, which is free)
2) Developer time

So if you can eliminate some of the work in part 2 you can save a lot (for instance, if you have the developer set up the database and link the tables, then work on retooling the forms and reports yourself, it could be a much smaller job). Or if you can get an open source database then you could also eliminate the cost in part 1.