RE: Access & Scaling

Or FoxPro.

Eric Kempter
CommAir Mechanical Services, Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From:   Bruce Shaw [SMTP:crashshw@ix.netcom.com]
Sent:   Friday, January 08, 1999 9:21 AM
To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject:        RE: Access & Scaling

OK,
I think most of us really understand the Access is a desktop solution not a
fullon "enterprise" solution. Now, MS sells SQL as its "enterprise" tool;
so, what is your experience and opinion of SQL v6.5 or better yet v7.0 vs.
DB2/400. I think that's more of an apples to apples comparison than Access
vs. DB2/400.( Not that I think it's a perfect matchup but I'm trying to be
non-partisan here). While we're at this debate, how come nobody has
mentioned anything about Oracle/Unix or this a MS bashing rave?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
> [mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of John Myers
> Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 1999 2:07 PM
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: Access & Scaling
>
>
> I write this as both a Microsoft Development Partner & as an IBM AS/400
> Developer and Reseller.
>
> Access is written to be a "personal" DBMS.  All access to Access is at the
> workstation level (not at the server level).  In a multi-user LAN
> environment, all access to Access is controlled by the requesting
> workstation.  In a LAN environment, if you run a query over a 100,000
> record file, all 100,000 records will be communicated over your LAN to the
> workstation which is running the query.  This pretty much guarantees a
> problem with scalability in terms of LAN utilization (at a minimum).
> Corrupted databases are also a significant threat because the
> DBMS controls
> are being executed on a different machine than the machine which
> is holding
> the underlying data.
>
> DB2/400 and SQL Server are both "server based" DBMS.  A query is issued to
> the server, run on the server, and the results are returned to the client.
> As a result, your LAN traffic is minimized & the tendency to corrupt the
> database is minimized because database activity is not controlled by a
> client which may show you a "blue screen of death" at any time.
>
> Many of our customers where we installed Access based solutions
> in the past
> are now asking for the function to be ported to DB2/400.  Their primary
> reasons are stability (no corrupted files), scalability (cut LAN traffic),
> and the fact that current AS/400 implementations of client database
> function have been increasingly competent.
>
> Access is good for prototyping, but DB2/400 is much better for production
> systems (in my book).  There are a lot of folks out there who can build
> sexy Access based demos, but don't have a clue how to create bulletproof
> production systems.  This is the differentiation between a "two
> year wonder
> ex-employee" and a "career piece of bedrock employee" of any organization.
>
> John Myers
> IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Technical Solutions
> Strategic Business Systems, Inc.
> 300 Lake Street, Suite B, Ramsey, NJ 07446  USA
> E-mail: mailto:jmyers@sbsusa.com   Phone: +1 (201) EASY 400   x131
> Web:    http://www.sbsusa.com      Fax:   +1 (201) 327-6984
>
> Instant AS/400 Web Guestbooks & Surveys - WebSurvey/400
>      http://www.sbsusa.com/internet/inpuzsvy.htm
>
> Prove that your shipment got there - Proof of Delivery!
>      http://www.sbsusa.com/docmgmt/dmsol4u.htm
>
>
>
>
>
> At 12:15 PM 1/5/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >It was wrote:
> >>Pete, what does "not scale very well" mean?  Are we to think of
> one or two
> >users, or 8, or 15, or 3,000?
> >>
> >>>They're not magic. My experience with Access has been that it doesn't
> >>>scale very well. It is, however, very compatible with SQL Server. I'll
> >>>bet this company is in for some stressful times.
> >>>Pete Hall
> >
> >Forget the number users---how about number of row?!
> >
> >Go throw about 250,000 rows into a table and try to browse it.
> Result: One
> >big old lazy dog!
> >
> >Access is like the vast majority of other MS products. Nice toys.
> >
> >Wynn
> >
> >BTW, to answer the scaling question, I would say that Access
> could handle 2
> >users fine, 8...ehhhh...yes but with some hacking & coughing, 15? Only if
> >you like long coffee breaks whilst querying; 3000? We'll never
> see that in
> >our lifetime!
> >"Uhhh, Uhhh, ..., they uh"--Lance LeRoy
> >
> >+---
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>
> John Myers
> IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Technical Solutions
> Strategic Business Systems, Inc.
> 300 Lake Street, Suite B, Ramsey, NJ 07446  USA
> E-mail: mailto:jmyers@sbsusa.com   Phone: +1 (201) EASY 400   x131
> Web:    http://www.sbsusa.com      Fax:   +1 (201) 327-6984
>
> Instant AS/400 Web Guestbooks & Surveys - WebSurvey/400
>      http://www.sbsusa.com/internet/inpuzsvy.htm
>
> Prove that your shipment got there - Proof of Delivery!
>      http://www.sbsusa.com/docmgmt/dmsol4u.htm
>
>
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