ASP & SQL Server
Discussion
Very off topic I know but...
Got a website running on Access at the moment via ASP. Keep having problems with the site going down and the message "Service Unavailable" appearing when trying to access the site.
I've been advised by the techies of the hosting company we use that porting it to SQL Server should solve the problem.
Apparently Access can't handle the number of people that are using the site, hence it keeps dying.
Is this a straightforward job to do or should I just start sleeping in the office for the next 4 months.
Any tips/advice would be most welcome.
VTR
Got a website running on Access at the moment via ASP. Keep having problems with the site going down and the message "Service Unavailable" appearing when trying to access the site.
I've been advised by the techies of the hosting company we use that porting it to SQL Server should solve the problem.
Apparently Access can't handle the number of people that are using the site, hence it keeps dying.
Is this a straightforward job to do or should I just start sleeping in the office for the next 4 months.
Any tips/advice would be most welcome.
VTR
Depends on how many Access-specific features you're using - if it's just used for tables, relationships and some views (does Access have views?) then there's an upsizing wizard which Microsoft were pushing a while ago - I think it has a fair old stab at automatically doing it for you.
SQL Server is much, much better. But be sure that this is the problem first - 'site unavailable' doesn't necessarily equate to Access having problems. Of course it depends on the number of hits, but i'd expect Access to suffer performance-wise rather than error. But it could be timeout errors I suppose.
Hope that made sense!
SQL Server is much, much better. But be sure that this is the problem first - 'site unavailable' doesn't necessarily equate to Access having problems. Of course it depends on the number of hits, but i'd expect Access to suffer performance-wise rather than error. But it could be timeout errors I suppose.
Hope that made sense!
You get a wizard shipped with SQL Server to help you upgrade Access databases to SQL Server. It is a pretty easy thing to do, but certainly doesn't leave you with the most beautiful database (almost always benefits from being tweaked by hand).
I assume your ASP usese ADODB objects to get at the existing Access DB? If so, all you'll have to do is point your connection object at the SQL Server, instead of Jet.
Again, you may want to rewrite some bits of your ASP in order to improve performance, but you ought to be able to get something up and running on SQL Server pretty quickly.
I assume your ASP usese ADODB objects to get at the existing Access DB? If so, all you'll have to do is point your connection object at the SQL Server, instead of Jet.
Again, you may want to rewrite some bits of your ASP in order to improve performance, but you ought to be able to get something up and running on SQL Server pretty quickly.
and I had this problem last year. Access can actually cope with a huge number more concurrent users than people think.
I was running PH on several Access databases until about a year ago.
The natural migration plan would have been to go to SQL Server but I didn't have the cash to buy the licences. It's bloody expensive.
After much investigation I went for MYSQL. Commercial licences are only about $200 from what I recall.
Migration is never simple. I've still got bits and pieces of PH running from Access databases because they are still coping.
Don't expect the migration to be easy. The subtlely different flavours of SQL can cause much grief!
I was running PH on several Access databases until about a year ago.
The natural migration plan would have been to go to SQL Server but I didn't have the cash to buy the licences. It's bloody expensive.
After much investigation I went for MYSQL. Commercial licences are only about $200 from what I recall.
Migration is never simple. I've still got bits and pieces of PH running from Access databases because they are still coping.
Don't expect the migration to be easy. The subtlely different flavours of SQL can cause much grief!
PetrolTed said: I had this problem last year. Access can actually cope with a huge number more concurrent users than people think.
I was running PH on several Access databases until about a year ago.
The natural migration plan would have been to go to SQL Server but I didn't have the cash to buy the licences. It's bloody expensive.
After much investigation I went for MYSQL. Commercial licences are only about $200 from what I recall.
Migration is never simple. I've still got bits and pieces of PH running from Access databases because they are still coping.
Don't expect the migration to be easy. The subtlely different flavours of SQL can cause much grief!
I can recommend MySQL we use it for everything web based these days www.mysql.com/ mainly we use PHP and MySQL is native to it, but there is an ODBC driver available from there website
Thanks for the advice guys...
MySQL is not an option. That would mean recoding the site in PHP wouldn't it? can do it but havn't got the time or inclination.
We've got SQL Server support as part of our hosting package anyway so we don't have to shell out anymore in that department...
Thanks again...
PS: Watch this space if I have any problems
MySQL is not an option. That would mean recoding the site in PHP wouldn't it? can do it but havn't got the time or inclination.
We've got SQL Server support as part of our hosting package anyway so we don't have to shell out anymore in that department...
Thanks again...
PS: Watch this space if I have any problems
As Ted mentioned, Access can cope with huge numbers of users so long as the majority of work is read only. Throw in updates (at a guess I'd say it was Gassing Station for Ted) and it flakes.
If you've managed to code a site using ASP+Access you should be able to do the port to SQL comfortably. Be aware that you'll come across a thousand weird errors and nuances in syntax that will bug you for weeks.
Alternatively you could pay one of the thousands of web developers (myself included) that linger on PH all day, to take the pain away
If you've managed to code a site using ASP+Access you should be able to do the port to SQL comfortably. Be aware that you'll come across a thousand weird errors and nuances in syntax that will bug you for weeks.
Alternatively you could pay one of the thousands of web developers (myself included) that linger on PH all day, to take the pain away
You could look at caching stuff. The Northants TVRCC website (www.tvrcc-northants.co.uk) is ASP / Access based but the since the data is 99% read only, it all gets cached into XML objects rather than hitting the db each time a page is loaded.
This obviously involves a bit of work though..
Steve
This obviously involves a bit of work though..
Steve
fatsteve said: You could look at caching stuff. The Northants TVRCC website (www.tvrcc-northants.co.uk) is ASP / Access based but the since the data is 99% read only, it all gets cached into XML objects rather than hitting the db each time a page is loaded.
This obviously involves a bit of work though..
Steve
Now with ASP.NET, all this caching comes out of the box. You can even introduce Cache Dependencies.
And ofcourse it works with Access, using OLEDB. But SQL Server is recommended for any serious website.
Cheers,
Wim
wimdows said:
fatsteve said: You could look at caching stuff. The Northants TVRCC website (www.tvrcc-northants.co.uk) is ASP / Access based but the since the data is 99% read only, it all gets cached into XML objects rather than hitting the db each time a page is loaded.
This obviously involves a bit of work though..
Steve
Now with ASP.NET, all this caching comes out of the box. You can even introduce Cache Dependencies.
And ofcourse it works with Access, using OLEDB. But SQL Server is recommended for any serious website.
Cheers,
Wim
Hmm nice touch, tend to run away from MS (particularly .NOT stuff) - J2EE/Oracle man myself). But ASP/Access is cracking for knocking up stuff on the cheap.
Having said that I know that our site is IIS5 so I would asume some of the .NOT stuff is built in as standard.
Steve
Now with ASP.NET, all this caching comes out of the box. You can even introduce Cache Dependencies.
And ofcourse it works with Access, using OLEDB. But SQL Server is recommended for any serious website.
Cheers,
Wim
Hmm nice touch, tend to run away from MS (particularly .NOT stuff) - J2EE/Oracle man myself). But ASP/Access is cracking for knocking up stuff on the cheap.
Having said that I know that our site is IIS5 so I would asume some of the .NOT stuff is built in as standard.
Steve
If your site is IIS5, it doesn't necessarily mean the box can run ASP.NET pages. All you need though is the .NET framework (redistributable), which is around 20MB, and you can run ASP.NET.
And - there are native ADO.NET drivers for Oracle or MySQL too.
Wim
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