Number of Users

B

bmorganh

We have approximately 60 engineers and designers in our office. I would like
to know if I give them the rights to a simple database that keeps track of
drawing progress, will there be a problem at the end of the day when many
people at once open the database to enter their progress? They will each be
entering progress on different records, but they will be in the database at
the same time.
 
A

Allen Browne

Access is inherently multi-user, so no problems there.

60 is quite a few if everyone is writing time. That's not really a problem;
it just means you will need to design it well, avoiding unnecessary writes.
 
A

Arvin Meyer [MVP]

bmorganh said:
We have approximately 60 engineers and designers in our office. I would
like
to know if I give them the rights to a simple database that keeps track of
drawing progress, will there be a problem at the end of the day when many
people at once open the database to enter their progress? They will each
be
entering progress on different records, but they will be in the database
at
the same time.
Click to expand...

I have had as many as 75 concurrent user sessions, but some of them were
reading only. Several of the ones that were writing were doing so intensely
though. Your only problem might come if they all commit their records at the
same time. Since saving a record only takes an instant, you should be OK if
they stagger the saves over a couple of minutes, but 20 or 30 hits at the
same time instant, will often cause a JET database to choke. If you do have
a problem, build a SQL-Server Express (also a free Microsoft product)
back-end, and just connect your Access front-end to it. SQL-Server, being a
server based database (instead of a file based one) can queue up its inputs
on the server while it swallows the writes.
 
D

Daniel Pineault

I have done exactly what you are talking about. The issue was not Access,
but rather the network. I used to get minor corruption and once the network
was switched from a 10/100 to a gigabit, did things ever improve. But all in
all, Access worked beautifully in my engineering environment (55+ users).

One recommendation that I would make to you is that you should setup you db
with a feature to automatically close sessions that remain inactive for
periods of time. Also add a feature to boot all users out, to allow you to
perform maintenance. Doing these 2 step now will save you lots of
frustrations down the road.

Do not forget to split your db and provide each user with their own copy of
the front-end. This is crucial for any multi-user database!!!
--
Hope this helps,

Daniel Pineault
http://www.cardaconsultants.com/
For Access Tips and Examples: http://www.devhut.net
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