Help for a Beginner Among Beginners

[NYA Joe]

Hello, would anyone kindly point me in the general direction of
a solution to a very basic database question (I'm not even sure where
to ask)?

I have a small consulting company of a dozen employees, with no IT
dept.
We have info from approx 1000 clients stored in an Access 2000
database
which is 10MB in size. A former employee made a simple form, which we
populate
with client info, and we just add records. The file is on a file
server, and
all 12 of us access it simultaneously. Recently, I hired a guy to
setup
a VPN, so that employees can add data to the database while on the
road.
However, it's very slow accessing the database through an internet
connection,
even through so-called high-speed broadband. Plus, we get "dropped"
connections, in
which we need to restart Access, or reconnect VPN, and usually lose
the last few
sentences that we typed.

Question: Where do I go to get a database faithfully accessible over
the internet?
Is this an Access question? Is this a networking question? Should I
just troll through
the yellow pages (I've hired some really incompetent IT people this
way)?

Thank you very much for any help you can give!

 

[ruralguy via AccessMonster.com]

If you think about it, the internet is waaaayyyy slower then the slowest LAN.
Even if you have high speed BroadBand. LAN's these days run at 100Mb rates
and HS Internet is maybe 1.5Mb if it is a full T1. The only way I know to
get acceptable performance over the Internet is to use a product like Citrix
http://www.citrix.com/lang/English/home.asp

 

[aaron.kempf]

if you're a newbie then I reccomend this:

a) avoid MDB like the plague
b) learn SQL Server
c) learn Access Data Projects
d) spit on anyone using MDB for anything

 

[aaron.kempf]

MDB doesn't work over VPN
use Access Data Projects, it works like a charm

 

[aaron.kempf]

I reccomend CraigsList.org for finding people.
concepts like 'the yellow pages' are 12 years obsolete

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

I explain why you can't use a vpn the way you descripte here:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal//Wan/Wans.html

The above also expalins some of your possible solutions....

Just keep in mind that a high speed t1 line is 100 times slower then your
cheap-o office LAN...

 

[aaron.kempf]

you're full of crap kid, ADP works like a charm over VPN, WAN,
Wireless and the godddamn public internet

only ****ing retards require people to use terminal server


seriously

MDB is crap
just move to ADP and your life would be much much much simpler

 

[aaron.kempf]

you're full of crap kid, ADP works like a charm over VPN, WAN,
Wireless and the godddamn public internet

only ****ing retards require people to use terminal server


seriously

MDB is crap
just move to ADP and your life would be much much much simpler

 

[NYA Joe]

Hello, for future reference, I went with a zero-cost workaround:
Use XPpro Remote Desktop to log in and run Access on the host
machine at the office, while the client works out of the office. You
might have thought, "duh...is that what you were asking?" Sorry
if I was not clear. I don't know if this will work at any great
distance,
but within the same town, it works great. The other minus is that
you need a host machine not doing anything else for the guys
logging in. This is definitely not a final solution, but should keep
us
going until the slow part of the season when we have the luxury
of upgrading to SQL server, or get someone to setup Windows Terminal
Services for us.

Thank you all on this site for your kind and generous attention!

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Hello, for future reference, I went with a zero-cost workaround:
Use XPpro Remote Desktop to log in and run Access on the host
machine at the office, while the client works out of the office. You
might have thought, "duh...is that what you were asking?" Sorry
if I was not clear. I don't know if this will work at any great
distance,
but within the same town, it works great.

That's how I hit my servers in various locations even when a thousand miles away.
I've done it on dialup but it's definitely sluggish.

And there's no reason why, in the future, you couldn't add a second el cheapo system
and hit it. You'd have to open different port numbers at the firewall and do a few
other similar adjustments.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[aaron.kempf]

it doesn't sound very scalable to me

and I'll choose SQL Server Replication--- MSDE has _AWESOME_
replication capabilities-- over terminal session any day of the week

is terminal session going to work when your client is out at the job
site?

 

[Aaron Kempf]

you should be using ADP

ADP works great over a VPN

terminal doesn't allow you to cut and paste from your desktop for example

 

[aaron.kempf]

Albert

you're mother ****ing wrong kid

stay the **** in the corner bitch until you learn ADP