Database driven websites have changed over the past few years. In the beginning of web application design and hosting, only the truly larger, popular sites used database application driven web sites. Now with the ecommerce and other application plug-ins and features, database driven sites are common place with over 75% of all hosting applications, sites.
But with everyone doing database driven sites there is one major question that still looms with everyone : should I use Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server to host my solution?
Access is a popular choice for many people doing database work because of its low cost and ease of use. However, as with many low-priced products, it is not really suited for the high-uptime requirements of most websites. Although customers may use Access as their backend database while hosting with us, we do not recommend it for any site that requires high levels of uptime. This is because Access is not designed for the stresses a production web site creates.
Macromedia, Microsoft and other application vendors all stress that using Microsoft Access for a database backend dramatically reduces the level of performance of a web site. The performance issues that hamper a site are greater when using Microsoft Access as compared to SQL Server. Around 90% of all database errors that are experienced are due to problems with using Microsoft Access as a database solution.
Microsoft's own documentation states that..."when you need unlimited users, 24x7 support, and ACID transactions, Microsoft strongly recommends that you use Microsoft SQL Server with Internet Information Server (IIS). Although Active Server Pages (ASP) works with any OLEDB and ODBC-compliant database, IIS has been extensively tested and is designed to work with Microsoft SQL Server when doing high transaction traffic and unlimited users that can occur in an Internet scenario."
Access was never meant to handle the type of user concurrency that can exist on a moderately busy website -- well over 50-100 connections. In addition, there are questions about how thread-safe the Jet ODBC and OLE drivers are. Although guidelines are hard to come by, our staff's experience has led us to recommend that if a website expects more than 20-30 concurrent users to access the site at any one time, Access is the wrong choice with which to store the backend data. Many concurrency issues that might arise with Access will result in pages that time-out, strange data results, and the possibility of corrupted data.
What can I do? Let our technical support group help you! If you are currently running a site that uses Access and would like to upgrade to SQL, we can import your data into a SQL Database for you. Utilizing SQL will lessen the strain that your site places on our webservers, which will ensure stability and optimal performance in the long run. How would you manage your SQL server database? Beginning with Access 2000, Microsoft implemented Access Project -- client-server relationships.
The application allows you to manage your SQL server databases by creating links to your tables and execute queries for updates. In addition, there are a multitude of third party ASP driven applications that are available that can be used to allow you to successfully manage your SQL
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