Access membership database and the web

[Kranman]

I could not decide exactly which specific group this would be best
posted in, so I posted it here. I apologize if this is not the best
group for this question.

I have a large Access database for a membership organization split
into a front and back end. My office staff accesses and updates the
database regularly on a daily basis so It would appear to me that the
back end database needs to reside on my local LAN. We currently have
a website (remote web server) were we would like members to be able to
dynamically update their own information in real-time. Knowing a
little bit about programming in ASP, this would indicate to me that
the backend should reside on the web server. So there seems to be a
little conflict as to where the backend database should reside. Also
some of the tables contain sensative infromation, that I would not
want exposed to the public.

What is the best way if any to achieve my goal? Any suggestions or
pointing in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

You need the web server to have full update rights to the mdb file.

This kind of suggests that you move the web server to your local lan, and
then you solve the "remote" problem.

another approach is to move the mdb file to a being a sql server back end.
This sql back end can usually be hosted on your web server. However, you
want to ensure that your web provider allows outside connection to the
hosted sql server (not all of them allow this).

You could also consider some type of system in which you once a day import,
or pull any updated customer records from the web site that have been
updated since the last "download" date. So, you ms-access *could* connect to
the sql server for ONLY updates. However, if that customer information has
quite a bit of relational data that those web users must *also* update, or
see and use..then synchronization problems will be more difficult. If there
is complexity to the data and many relations, then you likely only want ONE
copy of the database.

when you use asp pages to connect to a mdb file, your not using ms-access
anymore, and there really no relation between ms-access and web based
systems.

If you have web skills, then you could consider rebuilding the application
as a web based system, but ms-access is not the tool for that......

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

If you control the web server, create a DNS to a database that links to the
main backend on your LAN. If you don't, you'll need to deal with a copy of
the database and replicate the 2 dealing with conflicts. Another possibility
is to use a terminal connection with RDP. Have a look at WinConnect:

http://www.thinsoftinc.com/index.aspx.

With it you can limit the number of concurrent external connections to the
database. One thing to remember: No matter what the admin says, the only
way a terminal services connection works in access is through a separate
folder for each connected user. Anything else is an invitation to
corruption.

 

[Kranman]

Thank you both for your replies. I think I already knew the answer to
this one, but was hoping for a simpler (read less time consuming)
solution. From reading both of your posts, it sounds like I will most
likely be utilizing suggestions from both of you for the solution to
my problem.

Steve