My "professional DBA" ;-) opinion would concur with Jason's analysis. Use MySQL. Install the MySQL ODBC driver. Define a MySQL database, and an ODBC data source that points to the MySQL database. Point any ODBC compliant application (includes Access) at that data source. Access can be useful for quick and dirty front ends to data bases. It's not a database for anything beyond cookbooks. If the client really likes Access applications, for whatever reason that seems insane to us, they can have it, but the data is in a fairly robust data base management system. Good solution for future enhancements. Access data bases ave very limited concurrency. I've heard you can use something called a "Jet" driver that allows more than one person to access the data base at the same time, but I haven't played with that toy myself.
Access application. MySQL database. Go for it.
Have fun, Jim
Jason Clinton wrote:
On Tuesday 3 May 2005 10:59, Leo Mauler wrote:
Is that easier to convert from Access to SQL or easier from SQL to Access? (I think I know the answer, I just want to hear it from someone who does this professionally)
Well, I'm not a professional DBA but I sometimes play one. In the past I have used MySQL's ODBC driver to connect MySQL tables to Access so that Access reports and such could use the MySQL data as a source. Those tables that are linked-in appear in the list of tables just like any other Access table. It's not "copied"; every time Access needs info from those tables it sends it to the ODBC driver which contacts the MySQL server which handles the query.
The question is: is there an ODBC driver for the two that you want to use?
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