Need Proof... Need Help Access issues

[Jeffrey]

Good day all,

I have seen so many postings dealing with MS Access as a security risk
and other items, yet I see now clear reason why. I would really like
someone to point me in the right direction for clear reasons why MS
Access should not be used for the enterprise. For a handful of users
I don't see an issue, but when an access application (I use that
loosly) drags down the network and the SQL Server at the same time, it
makes me want to fix the problems and the only way to do that is to
create applications and not use MS Access.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Jeffrey

[Rick Brandt]

"Jeffrey" <fo************@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:87**************************@posting.google.c om...

Good day all,

I have seen so many postings dealing with MS Access as a security risk
and other items, yet I see now clear reason why. I would really like
someone to point me in the right direction for clear reasons why MS
Access should not be used for the enterprise. For a handful of users
I don't see an issue, but when an access application (I use that
loosly) drags down the network and the SQL Server at the same time, it
makes me want to fix the problems and the only way to do that is to
create applications and not use MS Access.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Poorly designed apps written with ANY tool can have the problems you're
describing. There is nothing unique to Access about that other than it is
more often in the hands of people who don't know what they're doing than
most other development tools.
--
I don't check the Email account attached
to this message. Send instead to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[Steve Jorgensen]

On 24 Aug 2004 08:58:05 -0700, fo************@yahoo.com (Jeffrey) wrote:

Good day all,

I have seen so many postings dealing with MS Access as a security risk
and other items, yet I see now clear reason why. I would really like
someone to point me in the right direction for clear reasons why MS
Access should not be used for the enterprise. For a handful of users
I don't see an issue, but when an access application (I use that
loosly) drags down the network and the SQL Server at the same time, it
makes me want to fix the problems and the only way to do that is to
create applications and not use MS Access.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Actually, Access and JET can be very useful components in an enterprise
application, they just shouldn't be used for parts of the system that have any
of these characteristics:

1. More than about 15 users sharing a single MDB back-end.
2. A database back-end that needs 24x7 up time.
3. A database back-end that contains highly sensitive data, and parts of it
must be accessible to non-trusted users
4. An application interface that must interface with a system at the code
component level, and not directly to the database.

There are probably a few cases I'm leaving out.

There are many places in an enterprise where Access front ends, and MDB
back-ends are appropriate, even though there are also many places where they
are not.

[Albert D. Kallal]

As the others have pointed out, you are dealing with two separate issues:

Stability
Security

These are two complete different and un-related issues.

When speaking of "lack" of ms-access security, the main problem occurs when
you use ms-access as a file share (a JET file share). Since each user
actually needs physical access to the data file, then users can copy or
examine the data base. You can, and should as a general rule hide all of the
ms-access interface. In fact, you can hide the ms-access interface to the
point where users generally can't look at or see the actual tables. In fact,
with no code you can hide all of ms-access to the point where users don't
even have to know it is ms-access. However, with a file share..users can
still copy the data file...and thus walk away with the data.

So, for high security applications, you can continue to use ms-access, but
the data store needs to be sql server (ms-access works as a fine client to
sql server). So, you can get all of the benefits of stability, reliability
and security if you use sql server for you data store...and simply use
ms-access as the front end.

As for stability?

I can say that if you run a split database, and always give each user a mde
file, and ensure that office updates are installed for ms-access and JET,
you can get a VERY reliable setup. I had ZERO complaints from my many
clients in terms of stability. I consider ms-access to be very stable in
this regards.

So, the issue is not that you can't use ms-access for the enterprise, but
not to use a JET file share if you need high security. (again, two different
issues here).

There are companies who have 1000 clients using ms-access all connected to
sql server. I think if you can have a 1000 users at the same time..then I
don't think this eliminates using ms-access in the enterprise role at all.
--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn