Developer Forum

Hello All

I have a split FE/BE A97 mdb. The BE (278mb) is on a server, with 7 FEs
(115mb) on 7 PCs: the PCs are running W2K professional, with 512mbRAM on
each. This is all starting to creak a bit: we are increasingly frequently
getting database corruptions and "can't open any more tables ..." and other
messages that I think are due to our being close to access's limits in terms
of sharing and effective mdb size.

The general recommendation seem to be move to SQLserver, but the cost of
this looks prohibitive, so I am wondering about splitting the application in
7 separate, complete mdbs (i.e. FE and BE together in one mdb), one for each
PC. This would reduce the amount of data in each mdb to a seventh of what is
currently being accessed by each user, and it would also do away with the
need for any sharing - which presumably would make for a more stable/robust
environment.

The problem would be implementing the regular changes that I have to make to
the design of various tables, forms, reports etc., but for this I wondered
if I could make the 7 mdb replicas, to be synchronised daily. I would not
want to synchronise the data (as this would obviously result in all the data
coming together), but I would want to synchronise the tables' designs and
all the forms/ reports/queries etc.

Does this sound feasible? Given that the working practices in the office
could be altered so that the users would not need access to each other's
data, I think perhaps this solution might just work ... or have I overlooked
something??!!

I would be very grateful for any advice.

Thanks
Leslie Isaacs

Replication should never be used on "complete" databases: it's only intended
for the tables, so your suggestion is a non-starter.

--
Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://www.yqcomputer.com/
(no e-mails, please!)

Replication is intended to synchronize data, and only data, between
disconnected users.

Afaik, it can handle some light weight form/report design changes, but not
particularly well and shouldn't be relied on for that purpose. This seems to
be pretty much the opposite of what you want to hear.

115mb fe? That seems a bit high.
--
HTH,
George

Douglas/George

Thanks for your replies - both of which obviously tell me not to do it!!
Is there another way of keeping forms/reports etc consistent with each other
across separate mdb - apart from manually importing them?

Thanks again
Les

ccess shouldn't really have too much problem handling 7 users if
it's setup and maintained properly. As George said, 115mb seems a
bit large for a FE.

How many queries/forms/reports do you have?

Do you have a lot of VBA code in your FE's?

Do you backup/compact the BE and FE's on a regular basis?

--
_________

Sean Bailey


"Leslie Isaacs" wrote:

gt; Is there another way of keeping forms/reports etc consistent with each other
Yes, make sure that your users can't be creating their own reports or forms
within the frontend. If you don't let them do that theh you can have the one
master which can be copied to each person's computer. And, I have a tool on
my website that allows you to enable autoupdating on any frontend. It is
here:

http://www.btabdevelopment.com/main/MyFreeAccessTools/tabid/78/Default.aspx

be sure to download the documentation too.
--
Bob Larson
Access World Forums Super Moderator

Tutorials at http://www.btabdevelopment.com

__________________________________


"Leslie Isaacs" wrote:

but, you can still give everybody the same front end and his own tables in
his own backend on his own computer.
and TonyToews made a Front End Updater
to keep al those frontends up to date...

michiel

"Leslie Isaacs" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote in



Perhaps.

Advisable?

Absolutely not.

Replication is not a solution for performance or application design
problems. Its sole purpose is to provide updatability of one back
end data file in more than one location such that the changes can be
synchronized so that both files are identical after the synch. In my
opinion, the only place this is appropriate today is for laptop
users who need live data out in the field without a full-time
Internet connection.

You need to redesign your app, which is the source of your problems.
It might that the particular problems would not even be resolved by
replication. Indeed, the "too many databases" problem is greatly
aggravated by replication, which requires the opening of even more
tables in the background than non-replicated apps.

So, in short, no -- replication is not the answer to your problem at
all.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.yqcomputer.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.yqcomputer.com/

ello Sean

Thanks for your reply - and apologies for the delay in my response (been
away).

The FE is big and complex: ~100 queries, ~50 forms and ~50 reports, and lots
of VBA.
I do compact the FEs andf BE regularly.

I guess I must have too many FE objects!

Thanks again
Les


"Beetle" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote in message
news: XXXX@XXXXX.COM ...

"Leslie Isaacs" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote in



That's a relatively trivial front end.

If you're replicating it, then you should stop that -- it's not
going to work in the long run.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.yqcomputer.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.yqcomputer.com/