Acces & NT - Good Practice

Hi all,

I have a general question and a specific problem.

We make extensive use of amatuer Access97 dbs at work over NT4 but have
restricted access as we are forbidden to cross over a LAN. Can someone
explain, or point me to websites, about good network practice in terms of
loading forms based on tables, running queries that either return large
recordsets or perform aggregate calculations on large recordsets - to my
mind even though the calculations might be quite fierce, only a few 'totals'
actually come over the network(?) How can the network traffic/effects of
running the database be measured?

Following on from the above, I am trying to utilise user forms (in Outlook
preferably) to enable data gathering, but would like to import this data
into the db. Ideally en bloc, but certainly not by re-typing the actual
data! Is this possible? Or for example, could I go back to my boss and say a
form set for 'data entry only' is safe as houses when it comes to crossing
FAPS & LANs?

Any pointers or words of wisdom will be pursued vigorously.

Many Thanks,

Paul Wagstaff.

re: Acces & NT - Good Practice

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003 18:01:50 +0100 in comp.databases.ms-access, "Paul
Wagstaff" <waggy@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Hi all,
>
>I have a general question and a specific problem.
>
>We make extensive use of amatuer Access97 dbs at work over NT4 but have
>restricted access as we are forbidden to cross over a LAN. Can someone
>explain, or point me to websites, about good network practice in terms of
>loading forms based on tables, running queries that either return large
>recordsets or perform aggregate calculations on large recordsets - to my
>mind even though the calculations might be quite fierce, only a few 'totals'
>actually come over the network(?) How can the network traffic/effects of
>running the database be measured?[/color]

When getting totals, etc., the data is transferred across the network
and the grouping/summing is done at the workstation level, this is
unavoidable when using Jet as the database. Good use of indices cut
down on network traffic on initial selections but sorting and grouping
even on indexed fields can create humungus amounts of trafic, not
noticable on a 100Mb/S LAN but if going across secure (packet
filtering) routers or slower WANs to other LANs then there will be
bottlenecks.

Replication may be an option but I don't know how much bandwidth that
uses, would depend on amount of data replicated and the regularity.

--
A)bort, R)etry, I)nfluence with large hammer.

(replace sithlord with trevor for email)

re: Acces & NT - Good Practice

sithlord@besty.org.uk (Trevor Best) wrote in
<4pislvoekcimvhof38i3hvsmao966hm9l3@4ax.com>:
[color=blue]
>Replication may be an option but I don't know how much bandwidth
>that uses, would depend on amount of data replicated and the
>regularity.[/color]

Indirect replication uses very little bandwidth, because it
exchanges files containing only the *changes* to the data.

Replication is not an answer for bandwidth problems, though, unless
the bandwidth is limited because it's a WAN that can't run at a
speed that Access can deal with. In those cases I would no longer
recommend replication, though -- I'd recommend Windows Terminal
Server, which also is very efficient with bandwidth.

So far as I can see, replication is only valid for synchronizing
data between sites that are not connected all the time, which would
include sites that can dial up each other but have no WAN
connection, or laptops.

For what it's worth, I don't do any replication work any more --
none of my clients use it any longer.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc