Hosting MS Access?

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helen999

2 posts

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#101344 29-Apr-2012 21:11

I am hoping to find a solution for the hosting of a MS Access database for a small office of 5 in Wellington who work for Birthright Inc (a social service agency).

Really minimal bandwidth, just phone numbers and a couple of other records that need monthly reporting on.

I have advised them that the cost could be around $25 a month.

The location is Wellington.

They would not be a credit risk and would be long term clients. (+2 years).

Can anyone provide me with reference to a good business that could do this, and what sort of information we would need to provide?

Thanks

Cheers
Helen

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#617212 30-Apr-2012 08:13

Welcome to Geekzone... Moved this to the correct forum, where you might get more replies than in the generic introduction one.

What are you trying to achieve? "Hosting" MS Access can be done by having its file on a file server in the office, or a shared folder on someone's PC.

You would also have to think about backup - what happens if someone's drive goes bad, or someone deletes the file, or someone enters wrong data?

helen999

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#617224 30-Apr-2012 08:53

Hi,
Thanks for the reply,

I am trying to help out 5 social workers in an office in Lower Hutt who are at the moment using MS Access individually on their own machines.
They want to have a central database so that all 5 can access the records entered by any of the others.
They probably wouldn't know how to have a file server in their office, nor would they be able to afford one, most lkely.
They were hoping that the database could be put on some other server and they pay for the service to access the database on the server.
I would expect that this would be 'web based' so that they could log into the database remotely.

Is this possible?
Thanks
Helen

Zeon

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#617229 30-Apr-2012 09:03

Hi Helen,
Unfortunately you can't really "host" MS ACCESS as such. It's more a workgroup database that is accessed over a local are network. While it is possible to access over a WAN (internet) link, it will be incredibly slow as Access will want to load the entire database onto every client.

There are really 4 options:

One is to get a terminal server to run access from (and one of my clients has done this for a legacy app) which can be accessed quickly over the net. The cost will be more however.

The 2nd option is a local server which is expensive and also could be a point of issue with backup, support etc.

The 3rd option is to use the new Access "web services" component so you can turn it into a web app and run it as a "hosted service"

The last option would be to not use MS Access and perhaps find a Mysql/PHP based app that will do the same thing or even Google Spreadsheet.

By the sounds of it they are all already used to the application and it may be somewhat complex. I'd suggest option 3 in that case. Private Message me if you would like some more info.

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Ragnor

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#617273 30-Apr-2012 10:07

I suggest you look into a secure online contact management system offered as a service by a reputable firm.

I've used Highrise by 37 Signals for a similar situation in the past
http://highrisehq.com/tour

If you read the small print on the signup page there is a free limited version that may suit your needs.

sidefx

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#617299 30-Apr-2012 10:41

Disclaimer: I've never used this product and only came across it after reading this humourous account, but supposedly this allows you to host access on the web: http://eqldata.com/onweb/

Personally I would look for some other way, but maybe it would be suitable...

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

Zeon

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#617310 30-Apr-2012 10:49

Apparently you can do it natively with Access 2010, I didn't realize until I did a quick Google when reading this thread:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402351.aspx

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