Access and Terminal Server????

[Kevin Witty]

Don't know if this is the right forum to ask this in, but...

I client of mine has gotten a pitch to replace many of his computers with HP
terminals, running Terminal Server client against a hosted server. His main
database is Access XP, with a 30mb front-end and a 180mb Jet backend... not
small, but not huge, either. Max users is 4-10. The guy making the pitch,
is of course, recommending replacing the Jet backend with SQL, and he's
probably right, although I have no experience with SQL myself.

Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing? Gotchas to the
Terminal Server approach?

TIA,

Kevin

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Using TS means that if your current system performs well, then I see NO
reason to upgrade to sql server.

However, some issues of growth etc are important. (and, how well does the
system run now?).

And, I assume that you always installed, and ran the access front end on
each pc..right? (it should not be shared).

180 megs is not large (is that the size after doing a compact"). However,
180 megs after compacting is a nice chunk of data.

If your current system performance well right now..then moving to TS would
clearly work just great..and in fact, would likely increase reliability of
your system. (and, it could very also increase performance of your access
system also).

So, I would certainly "consider" sql server for the future...but if your
current system runs well now..then you have time on your side to make the
decisions to move the back end to sql server. If it works well now..then you
don't have to "hurry" to move to sql server. If growth of data and users is
in the future..then again sql server makes sense...but no hurry!

However, using TS does not really change this issue much. Also, that font
end of 30 megs again sounds large (any graphics on screens etc?). I have
medium sized application with 160 forms, about that many reports..and lots
of code. The total size of the mde file (you are using a mde for your users
...right??)...is only 6 megs in my case....

 

[Kevin Witty]

Hi, Albert!!

First, I'd like to thank you for some of your other work, on transferring
Access to Word, but I'm afraid this is sort of on the same subject: MS
making us do much more work and paying more than we should to implement a
solution.

We're talking about two different things here:

TS/Citrix as a front end, with no need to have a full PC with a full copy of
Office installed, just a dumb thin client terminal; or a real PC with a
license for Office Professional.

Jet as a back end; or some version of SQL as the back end.

In all the Access implementations I've done to date, I've done my
development work on an mdb file, linked to a Jet back-end, then converted it
to an mde file, and had routines which copied the mde file to the user's
desktop.

Suddenly I find, apparently, that with Citrix/TS this is no longer necessary
or desirable. Better, apparently, to have the user linked to the original
mde file on the server. Since each user on TS gets his own "memory copy" of
the front end, "refeshing" the copy on the desktop is more than useless.

As far as SQL is concerned, I've been scared shitless about converting from
Jet to SQL, but a friend of mine, who I totally respect, tells me that MS
has made it pretty painless, and I'm going to give it a try tomorrow.

This is not a simple app: the mde file is 14mb, and there are some 210 forms
in it, and an unfortunately large amount of code behind each (Wish there
was a doc I'd read which made it clear to me about the
OnExit/BeforeUpdate/AfterUpdate events!).

As John Vinson can tell you, I'm somewhat of a simpleton, and am looking for
simple answers here to difficult questions. TS seems like too easy of a
solution, and I'm trying to find out why it's not.

Thanks for your time!

Kevin

 

[Rick Brandt]

Hi, Albert!!

First, I'd like to thank you for some of your other work, on transferring
Access to Word, but I'm afraid this is sort of on the same subject: MS
making us do much more work and paying more than we should to implement a
solution.

We're talking about two different things here:

TS/Citrix as a front end, with no need to have a full PC with a full copy of
Office installed, just a dumb thin client terminal; or a real PC with a
license for Office Professional.

Jet as a back end; or some version of SQL as the back end.

In all the Access implementations I've done to date, I've done my
development work on an mdb file, linked to a Jet back-end, then converted it
to an mde file, and had routines which copied the mde file to the user's
desktop.

Suddenly I find, apparently, that with Citrix/TS this is no longer necessary
or desirable. Better, apparently, to have the user linked to the original
mde file on the server. Since each user on TS gets his own "memory copy" of
the front end, "refeshing" the copy on the desktop is more than useless.

Using Terminal Server does NOT eliminate the recommended practice of giving each
user their OWN copy of the front end file. TS can reduce system setup and
maintenance by having fewer machines to correctly configure, but you still need
a method to push new MDE updates to each user running the application.

 

[TC]

Just in passing, I suggest you refer to "SQL Server", not "SQL". SQL is a
data access language which is implemented in many different database
products, including (but not limited to) Oracle, SQL Server - and Jet! It
really doesn't make much sense to talk of changing "from Jet, to SQL".

Cheers,
TC

 

[Kevin Witty]

Well, actually, it does... in theory at least I could change to any flavor
of SQL as a back end.

Kevin
-------------------------

Just in passing, I suggest you refer to "SQL Server", not "SQL". SQL is a
data access language which is implemented in many different database
products, including (but not limited to) Oracle, SQL Server - and Jet! It
really doesn't make much sense to talk of changing "from Jet, to SQL".

Cheers,
TC

 

[Kevin Witty]

From my understanding of Terminal Server so far, that's exactly what it does
eliminate, since each user who starts a TS session in essence gets a memory
copy of the front end which is located on the server. I'll be glad to be
corrected on this, but that's what I've been by the "experts".

???

Kevin

-----------------------------------------------------------

Using Terminal Server does NOT eliminate the recommended practice of giving
each
user their OWN copy of the front end file. TS can reduce system setup and
maintenance by having fewer machines to correctly configure, but you still
need
a method to push new MDE updates to each user running the application.

 

[TC]

You're mistaken.

"SQL" is not a database product! It is a database >language< that is used by
many different products.

Since Jet uses SQL, it >does not< make sense to talk of "changing from Jet,
to SQL".

That's like saying, "changing from a Ford, to a car".

TC
(off for the day)

 

[Rick Brandt]

From my understanding of Terminal Server so far, that's exactly what it does
eliminate, since each user who starts a TS session in essence gets a memory
copy of the front end which is located on the server. I'll be glad to be
corrected on this, but that's what I've been by the "experts".

What do you think happens when multiple users open a single file when NOT using
terminal server? Do you think they are sharing RAM?

Access NEVER loads the entire file into memory and it is constantly creating
temp objects and saving changes to existing objects _on disk_. With multiple
users in the same file this can lead to corruption. The use of Terminal Server
does not alter this one bit.