Database sharing

[mpm32]

I have someone that wants me to make them a database - I'll prob use access.

They are a very small office and they want the DB to be accessed by 3 locations.

Any suggestions for a cheap i.e. free way to do this?

I thought of remotely accessing a PC but I think that only one user can do that at a time.

I also found Zoho, anyone use that?

[ark_ader]

Access would be the Application I would use for small business databases.

[Felsir]

I think you can have more than one person accessing an Access file at the same time.
Do you plan to use the Access forms to search/input data? Or do you have a windows (visual basic/ vb.net) application that connects to the database?
Another option to consider is using a web front end to search/input data. ASP is easy to learn.

[ahofle]

Also, have a look at MySQL.
http://www.mysql.com/

[Matthew Anderson]

There really are too many variables on this one:

Answer me this

1, How many tables and records in them?
2. How much contention for the rows?
3. How much experience in programming do you have?
4. How much experience in networking do you have?
5. Any web experience?

The simplest solution would be to copy a read-only access database to all 3 locations and have them use microsoft access to look at it. This would allow the folks to look up information but not add or modify any of it... While not strictly useful it may satisfy what they need to do.

A middle solution might be to put the access database on a shared drive all 3 locations can hit and enable it for read-write. I would do a backup of it every day and you would have to lecture everybody about contention (what happens when 2 people are modifying the same record)

One of the hardest would be to create a MYSQL database on a hosted linux server and access it using a custom PHP solution. It is the most challenging because if you don't know MYSQL, SQL, PHP that is a lot to learn.

Also never forget they will want to generate reports out of this system. If they tell you that they do not, THEY ARE LYING!!!

Best of luck

[mpm32]

I have lots of Access Programming experience. i.e. VB
A little networking
A little web.

I think there will only be 5 or so tables.
   An ID table that contains the records
   A notes table that holds session notes
   A location code table
   A password table that would store the login ID.
   A couple of TBD tables that may hold report data etc.

At work here it's easy for me because I just put it on a shared drive if small, or on citrix if it's a larger db with many users.

I want to branch out and do some dbs for small businesses on the side.  If it was at one location I wouldn't have an issue, or if they had a network.

But they do not and they want to be able to use it from 3 locations.  I think they only have one PC at each location.

I was thinking of getting a small server to put it on rather than an outside hosting vendor.  Then I'd have to figure out a fee for hosting it for them, which would be less than the hosting service or built into my maintenance plan.  Not sure how hard that would be for me to set-up but I think I would be able to figure it out.

[Matthew Anderson]

Well, it feels like you want to learn or at least ASP.net and IIS and use Access as your backend (or maybe SQL Server express)

But it is a lot of work especially making the gui.


So the user could login to your www site and do all the lookups and changes.

Of course if you have the bucks you could set up a Citrix desktop.

Anyone out there have a better idea?

Sounds like he needs a solution for 3 remote desktops all trying to access and update the same information without any dedicated links between them.

[mpm32]

If I have a server, could I set it up so that the users would see their folder like a shared drive?

[ark_ader]

You would be better off making Access your front-end with an Oracle back-end.

This is not hard to do, and you can get Oracle Express free so your cost would be lower.

You can then distribute the database to all sites link them up and then do incremental runs throughout the day. 

[stace]

+1 for MySQL 

[Matthew Anderson]

If I have a server, could I set it up so that the users would see their folder like a shared drive?

Have to talk to a networking person for that... But I believe you can.

[Blanka]

Go webbased with PHP and MySQL. You can host the stuff for a couple of bucks/year and there are zillion of open source apps already made for a billion of businesses.

Just search the net for the kind of database + MySQL + PHP and I guess a couple of good solutions will pop up.