[WEB4LIB] RE: Access2002 vs. SQL .. which way do we go?

[Pinkham, Lida]

Richard,

You are right usage is relative.  I was not careful with my words. According
to big business standards our usage would be a drop in the bucket. Matched
up against other similar libraries, I think our's is quite high.I don't have
specifics on hits on the databases as that is not my area, but I do know
that our sites get over 1.5 million hits per month.

Karen,

I would consider 14,000 transactions in one month to be pretty low. I know
for fact that several of our Access databases get 10x that in a month and
they run fine.

It could be a multitude of reasons - code used to access the data,
complexity of the requests, version of Access, the server, how you have the
workload divided between the servers, etc. This is not my area of expertise.
I was just sharing that we have been able to do quite a lot with Access. We
have 5 web sites that are 100% driven by Access and ASP and our other 6
sites use Access & ASP quite heavily.

There are a lot of libraries out there that would not be able to afford the
equipment, software, and most importantly the staff to administer an SQL
Server.

I guess we are learning that ultimately, it depends on your needs and
resources.

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen Harker [mailto:Karen.Harker at UTSouthwestern.edu]
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 10:22 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Access2002 vs. SQL .. which way do we go?


Here, here!  Two years ago, when we released our Ejournals list (a
"lite" database of about 500 records at the time), we were using
Access2000 and while it worked beautifully during testing, when we
launched it to the public, Access crashed.  While we weren't certain, we
suspected the infamous "memory leak" so associated with Access2000, and
supposedly fixed by Access2002.  However, at the time, after two such
crashes, we quickly migrated to SQL Server (6.5 at the time) and have
had no similar problems to date.  
 
Now, I am not sure of the exact transactions/second (or minute), but
not long after the launch, we recorded over 14,000 in a month.  This is
heavy for us, and obviously too heavy for Access2000.  I've been talking
SQL Server up ever since.
 
 
 
Karen R. Harker, MLS
UT Southwestern Medical Library
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX  75390-9049
214-648-1698
http://www.swmed.edu/library/

>>> Richard Wiggins <rich at richardwiggins.com> 12/5/02 10:52:45 PM >>>
What is your definition of "very high usage"?  To me, on today's Web,
that
could mean 1 million, 10 million, or 100 million transactions per
day...

How do you quantify your usage as "very high"?  Your peak load is the
key.
Transactions per minute (or per second) would be relevant here.  There
are
some very real technical (and business) reasons why Access can't
perform
like MS-SQL or another transaction-oriented database when transaction
volume
is high.

/rich

"Pinkham, Lida" wrote:

> 
> Here at PLCMC we use MS Access for all of our web databases. As a
matter of
> fact much of the content we deliver on the web is in a database. We
have
not
> had any problems and some of these sites get very high useage.
>

____________________________________________________
Richard Wiggins
Writing, Speaking, and Consulting on Internet Topics
rich at richardwiggins.com       www.richardwiggins.com     





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