Max Number of Users ???

[Jamie]

Hi;

I am designing a web site for a large organisation.

The website is to be coded in ASP with database
functionality.

I want to use Access, but am not sure that it will be
able to handle the number of users to this site. What is
the 'safe' operating limit with regards to numbers of
users hitting an Access 2000 db?

At what point (number of concurrent web site users)
should I stop using Access and think about moving to
something bigger .. such as SQL?

many thanks
Jamie

 

[MacDermott]

Although I have designed and implemented successful websites with Access as
a back end, it is not something which is generally recommended.

The first reason is concurrency.
An Access "back-end" can fail with as few as about 4 users trying to hit it
at exactly the same time.
If your usage is light and spread out over time, this may not be an issue.

The second is availability.
An Access database must be taken off-line regularly for
maintenance/compacting.
If your site does not need to be available 24-7, this is not a big issue.

The third is reliability and recovery.
While Access is "generally reliable", Access databases do get corrupted more
easily than "industrial strength" databases like SQL Server. Because it
does not truly encapsulate transactions, it doesn't have the ability SQL
Server and others do to rollback to a known state if corruption does occur.
For this reason, it isn't generally recommended for anything "mission
critical".

If none of the above considerations apply to your situation, go ahead and
use Access!

- Turtle