DB Deployment

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matthias

Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2003
Messages
7
Location
Germany
I used to work with SQL-Servers or text dbs until now.
Now is the first time, that I need a medium size solution.

I am thinking about an access mdb, but I am not sure: do the customers need to have office (access) installed, if I want to access it from my app with ado.net? (i write in vb)
The customers dont have internet and some even dont have office installed. And they are all beginners (most of them aquired their machine just for my prog)
(They do have the newest .NET Framework)
 
You may want to look at MSDE as an alternative to Access. If you have Visual Studio.Net it ships on the setup CDs (DVD). If you are using Visual Studio 2003 then there is a link to Microsofts website where you can download it.

In a nutshell MSDE is a SQL compatible DB engine so you probably already now how to code / design for it. Plus it can be upgraded to SQL without needing any source changes.
 
msde

i was already thinking that msde could be the solution, but i totally fail to launch/install it on my windows 2003 server (enterprise edition)

after the install (auth. mode set to database) the SQL-Server-like notify icon appeares, but I cant select a service (nor server), so the thing isnt startable. btw: how do I distribute msde databases? (pretending I had already managed to install it on my machine ;-) ) Is it enough to provide a file + my application or are there dlls, drivers, services (...) to install at the customers machine?

thanks
matthias
 
Matthais,
do distribute MSDE engine with an application please downlaod my "how To" document . unfortunately it is on gotdotnet.com not here
go there and search the sample database for "Embedding MSDE SQL" and you will get a document I wrote about this


good luck
Nader Hamzei
 
mdb, for small single user applications is a pretty good solution in my opinion, all that is necessary is the JetEngine Library which is part of the wink and later platforms. there are d/ls available for 95 and 98.

examples of apps that use mdb:

Visual Source Safe, Certificate Server.

The latest Jet allows for executing DDL via ADO which is pretty cool.

MSDE can be overkill for a single user application.
Not only a drain on cpu resources, but on configuration development resources.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong. . .
I might not know what I am talking about.

Joe Mamma
 
No, I think you know what your talking about

Hey Joe Mamma,
I believe you are corrrect with the caviat "for small single user applications ".
MSDE is actually MS SQL server on downers. It is VERY CPU intensive. The application that I designed it for however was a very large scale Catalog, with multiple table relationships with some tables having more than 200,000 rows. To make matters more difficult, The report was being run by Crystal and the average report had a SQL SP with around 7 to 8 table joins.

The application needed to run on a laptop while not connected to the internet and also update the database when the user connected in the background.

We did attempt many different ways of doing it, such as Access DB, but the performance was not good.

There is also one downside I have noticed by using the Jet Engine.

mdb table locks can cause datapackage collison. It should never be used in a multi user application. I found this out the hard way once when the Client was too cheap to pay for SQL


anyway, have fun and thanks :cool:

Nader Hamzei
 
LordNader said:
It should never be used in a multi user application. I found this out the hard way once when the Client was too cheap to pay for SQL
Click to expand...

On the other hand, becoming skilled at deploying the MSDE can become quite lucrative. Nothing better than being able to save your client US$100K :eek: by showing that MSDE can serve a site just as well as the 25 Seat oracle 10 that was in their budget:confused:. Theyll still think you are the one that charges too much :( , but at least they will have more money in their budget :) for that neat feature you have up your sleeve to push on the upsell that (unbeknownst to them) takes only an hour to implement, but will cost them US$5000 for delivery. :D

Whos Mamma?
Joe Mamma!
 
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