Downtime -- what causes it?

[azu_daioh]

Our database is located on a server in Sacramento. Our users are
located throughout California. We dont have a backend/frontend because
majority of the users complained of the speed (they say it's slower
than having a single database being shared across the network.

Our problem lies on the query speed -- sometimes when I filter the
database containing over 35,000 records -- it takes a lot of time to
run the query and when most of us are trying to do our reports on the
same day -- it would often takes more than 30 minutes to do 1 query

I need some advise on how to make this process faster. Our IT folks
dont support Access so we're on our own.

Does anyone know if the number of users sharing the database has any
connection to the speed? If so, would it be beneficial to
automatically disconnect idle users?

Any tips that would make it faster is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Sharon

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Your topic doesn't match your subject as your problem is not downtime.
It's more being very slow.

Our database is located on a server in Sacramento. Our users are
located throughout California.

You are so lucky you haven't had corruptions.

Does anyone know if the number of users sharing the database has any
connection to the speed? If so, would it be beneficial to
automatically disconnect idle users?

No, and no.

Any tips that would make it faster is greatly appreciated.

Your choices are SQL Server or Terminal Server.

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
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[Dennis]

What Tony said. You are SO lucky your database hasn't been corrupted beyond
repair.

Also, have you ever done a COMPACT on your database? If not, you should do
it at least once a week if it's heavily used. And 35,000 records is a very
small database.

FYI

 

[david]

If there is only one user, you can run in exclusive mode.
That is faster, but other users would not be able to connect.

If there is only one user, (even in shared mode) you will
get exclusive locks on the LDB and MDB file. That would
mean that both files would be transfered to your local
network cache on your workstation. You wouldn't be
using the network at all except at the start and end of the
session. If another user connected, the file would be
transfered back to the server, and you would both use
the network to access it.

So yes, having 2 users could be slower than having 1 user,
and disconnecting idle users might have some effect. But
having 3 users is no different than having 2 users.

If having 3 users is different than having 2 users, you are
probably looking at a network utilisation issue. Since you
are talking about a report, another idea would be to use
a replicated database, and run your reports locally.

If 3 users is the same as 2 users, the slowness is a network
delay issue. The solutions to that are (1) Terminal Services,
or (2) Exclusive access, including: (3) Replication. You can
also make network access faster by turning off packet signing
and by fixing DNS and routing problems, but normally you
won't find enough difference there to matter.

(david)