access vs. sql

[kosar]

our site is currently running on access database, we are receiving a lot more traffic to our site and we generally have about 150 customers broesing the site simoltaneously an hour. should we bee looking at switching to sql server

[txbakers]

ABSOLUTELY!

Access will not handle the load. Start the switch now, before your site gets clogged and you start losing customers.

[moltar]

I agree with txbakers, access is just not designed for that sort of stuff. It can handle "office" type of transactions very well, but it is not good with web stuff...

[grahamstewart]

Also don't just consider SQL Server.

You may also want to check out MySQL (because it is free and integrates well with PHP) or Oracle (because it is the big cheese in the database world and very powerful).

[zulufox]

I am actually in the PROCESS of switchin from asp/acces to php/mysql.

Its faster, its cheaper, and its more supported (IMHO).

[txbakers]

ASP/mySql is also a great combination, and is supported in as many places as PhP/mySQL.

[ergophobe]

Funny you should post this now. I'm reading WebmasterWorld to entertain myself while I let my conversion script run. When it's done, our work group will leave Access behind, no doubt forever.

Some things are not easy to replicate (we're switching from Access on work stations and using replication to synchronize to a browser-based interface accessing an online database), but there are also features that I can offer with PHP/MySQL that I just couldn't offer easily with Access (i.e. each user has a page that lists the last ten searches they did and the number of results returned. I'm sure I could do this with VBA, but I have no idea where to begin).

If you read my posts regularly, you may know that one issue we've had is a hodge-podge of character encodings in the Access DB, which is the only real hitch we've had in conversion.

Conversion script just finished running - got to go.

Good luck,

Tom

[Rugles]

You can pull it off if you use multiple db's instead of just 1 large database. But at a certain point you will need SQL.

[wackal]

Rugles,

Is that what you do on your site? I use Access myself for some pretty high end stuff and I'm always interested to hear how far people can push it.

My current site is pretty low traffic, but I did design a site a few years ago that was handling 10,000 unique visitors per week.

[danieljean]

Well, if you are considering a switch how about going direct to Postgres? It has many of the "big cheese's" functionalities (Oracle), and is just as easy to interface with PHP, as well as being free.

The only gotcha is the lack of support at the moment for Windows, though it is coming soon. MySQL otoh has a great many gotchas, it is not standards compliant, its joins are a mess, no stored procedures (except in the new, not yet stable versions)...