Markus

Afternoon/Evening,
We've been playing around with the Parallels beta, mainly so we can access an Access (no pun intended) database that is located on our server in the UK.

Access from the UK to the database isn't stellar, but it's usable. Locally it's very quick as well.

The problem comes when muggins here needs to access it from Parallels, or a "real" PC. It's very slow indeed. Taking around 3 mins to open the database and about 2 mins to open a record. Opening the DB in the UK takes about 30 seconds, and opening a record about 10.

Obviously I'm a bit far away from the server, so networking is a possible cause, but I've tried it from a real PC and the times are only about 5 seconds quicker, if that.

We're thinking that this could be a limitation of SMB, that it's just being slow, or maybe it's something to do with Access and how it works over SMB.

Does anyone have any tips of how to speed things up? Many people need simultaneous access to the DB at the same time, so having local copies of it is not acceptable.

Thanks in advance.

GaryK

I would hazard a guess and say its access, it never performs great networked or multi-user. Are you constrained to using access as a better bet would be to use MSDE which is a cut down SQL server which you can connect using IP no problem.

Gary

Markus

Thanks Gary,
How easy is it to convert an Access database into MSDE?

The theory here is that we want to migrate the admin/sales/accounts people from PC's to Intel based Macs. We're using the aforementioned beta of Parallels Workstation to run a VM (Win 98 or XP) on the Intel macs.

The chaps need to access the sales database, now in the UK, that's ok, as it's not too slow, but it'd be nice to have it up to the same speed as the real PC's in the UK. It'd also be nice if I could access it from here (Canada) with a reasonable bit of speed. This would allow me to view customer information and also add in tech history for the customers, which is helpful to forgetfull old me and also handy for the sales team

We have talked about converting the DB over to something else (Filemaker, MySQL, whatever) however, that will take time, and we need a solution to be in place from the word go. We can stay as we are now, cross platform, but the Boss is pissed off with his PC and really wants shot of if, we've converted him to the Mac side you see (actually he's had an iMac at home for a while, and you can't help but be converted when you run a mac software development company )

GaryK

MSDE has something called DTS which will allow you to easily migrate from Access to MSDE. I found this for you as well http://www.actualtechnologies.com/ MSDE is just a cut down version of the full blown sql server so any client tools you can get for sql server will work with MSDE. MSDE will be superceded by sql server express 2005 which is available now although its relatively new and MSDE (based on the sql 2000) engine is very reliable and mature.
Gary

Markus

Thanks for that, I shall investigate.