Our company has used Access for its database needs. It wants to stick with the current database frontend, but migrate the tables to some cloud based solution. We do not want to host SharePoint or pay a monthly fee for Office 365. I have used MySql as a backend, but we had to install drivers. We will also be gathering data from Google Forms on a regular basis. Can anyone suggest possible options for this combination? Data from Google Forms, Access frontend, and cloud based backend.
Thanks!
When you say you don't want any monthly fees, are you thus expecting to find some database server system for free and without cost that allows external connections? I simply don't think you going to find such a service for free.
Since office 365 starts at $6 per month, then I not sure why you think this is too high of a cost here? So you could certainly consider to up-size your Access back end tables up to office 365 and continue to use your Access front end. And more amazing is with Access 2010 this means you get a "off line" and disconnected mode. This means that your application will continue to run EVEN WITH NO internet connection. The instant you find a wifi then the data sync process starts again. And this sync is not file based, but record based and is really replication built into the product and this setup requires ZERO extra code on your part.
And since your back end is not an access file, then you can now scale out to millions of users – the only real limit is the size of the 365 server farm (a super huge computer farm).
Keep in mind that in addition to simply linking your Access application to these office 365 tables, you can also publish Access web forms to office 365. So in the following video at the halfway point I switch to running the Access application 100% inn a browser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4mH0jPntI
Note the above resulting browser application does not require any ActiveX or Silverlight. And as noted, again this is again based on that massive server farm.
Another cloud approach is to consider SQL Azure. Access 2010 also has baked into the product the ability to use the cloud based edition of SQL server running on the Azure OS.
So, you could consider using SQL Azure, but that going to be about $10 per month.
I think the office 365 deal at $6 per month is the best bet (and you get lync communication which gives you remote desktop support for your customers or perhaps for supporting this application!). I actually think that Lync makes the $6 worth it alone. Toss in most SharePoint features and document sharing (including free web based Word, and Excel), this is hard to beat.
So it not clear here why you are avoiding office 365, but will have to adopt some kind of server setup here and I not aware of ANY system that going to allow free external connection from your desktop client software such as Access.
I think the best solution is 365 for use with Access.
Another low cost solution I used in the past is to consider some VERY low cost web hosting sites that also allow external connections to their database. In fact I did this for a good number of years (I did not even use the web site hosting!). I simply purchased the monthly web site and used the ability to "connect" external to the database server that was part of the web hosting package. This I did for a good number of years, and at VERY low cost. I thus was deploying Access front ends to multiple places and using this cheap-o web hosting account.
However, I am much now dropping this low cost web setup with the arrival of office 365 being even less cost than that cheap-o $9 web package I was using for this.
So, at the end of the day, I don't think there is any free hosting that allows external database connections, but the most low cost approach is office 365 at this point in time.
Cloud based does not mean you have to think about your database backend any differently, you could it you wished stick with MS access, however as Access does not natively support remote connections then you would need to setup a VPN to your cloud server in order to connect to the .mdb, .aacdb file.
Dedicated database servers are always a nice option (MySql, Sql Server Express, Postgre SQL to mention the free ones) but you will always need to ensure you have the necessary drivers installed (shouldn't be the end of the world)
As for Google forms, I don't really have much experience with those but I imagine Google would have made every effort to ensure they can be implemented relatively easily with existing database products.
Related
Background: [No copyright implementation]
[No copyright implementation] My company develops inventory control application for clients in the area where we don't have copyright protection by the government. The only option is to hide and protect things by ourselves. It is common for competitors here to copy other company's database and build front end on it and then start selling their own app.
The Problem
We use MS SQL server express edition and some times standard edition. We have found that any of customer can stop sql engine, copy the files from the pc where application was installed and then attach that database files into another system where they have full windows admin rights and that's it they can fully explore our database.
I am looking for
Is there any reliable solution to protect our database design being viewed by other people. Only our application may connect through the users we have created inside the db?
In past i had heard that sybase adaptive server has such functionality, windows users had no access in it and users were stored inside each db itself. there was no way to login if someone don't have password of the users stored in db itself.
Thanks
Your help will be highly appreciated.
As suggested by Sean, hosting it yourself or in a cloud service like Azure SQL DB is your best bet. Still no guarantee but makes it significantly harder to get everything but a lot easier to lockdown than alternatives. It's also a lot easier to manage and handle user requests for restricted data compared to something deployed onsite.
Outside of that, there's really no practical way to do it if deployed at the customer's site. Even if you lock down all logins and users (regardless of Windows or SQL Server logins) so no customer login has admin level privileges, you still can't prevent them from copying the database file, mounting it on a different instance where they have admin privileges or even just running it as an app to reset SA password. If they have physical access, all bets are off. It's only a matter of knowledge and time.
You can make it harder by encrypting the entire database and only your app holds the key. Users then have to either break the encryption algorithm (hard if done right) or your application that holds the key (easier but still not trivial). Both are expensive to do correctly and they really just delay, not prevent access. You will also introduce other problems like key management and rotation which, if not done right can result in customers losing access to their data.
You could leave a cookie trail (e.g. functions and tables that are active,look like they're part of the app and are tightly coupled to useful parts of the app but actually aren't related to the application's core functionality). That makes it easier to prosecute later but if the country has no laws protecting intellectual property, this will only be useful if the software is re-used or resold in a country that has such laws.
We're getting ready to build a new platform for our current system. Currently we install sql server express locally to all our clients and all their data is stored there. While the process works pretty good, it's still a pain to add columns/tables etc. We also want to have our data available outside of the local install. So we're moving to a central web based sql database and creating a web based application. Our new application will be a Silverlight 5, wcf ria services, mvvm, entity framework application
We've decided that either a web hosted sql server database or sql azure database are the way to go. However, I have no idea why I would choose one over the other. The limitations of azure don't seem to apply to us, but our application will be run on our current shared web host. Is it better to host the application on the same server as the database? Do we even know with shared web hosting that the server is on the same location as the app? There's also the marketing advantage of being 'in the cloud' which our clients love when we drop that word (they have no idea about anything technical, it's just a buzzword for them). I'm not too worried about the cost as I think both will ultimately be about the equivalent of each other.
I feel like I may be completely overthinking this and either will work, however I'd like to try and get the best solution for us and don't want to choose without getting some feedback.
In case it helps, our application is mostly dashboard/informational data. Mostly financial and trending data. It's almost entirely read only. Sometimes the data can get fairly large and we would be sending upwards of 50,000 rows of data to the application.
Thanks for any help/insight you can provide for me!
The main concerns I would have with using a SQL Azure DB from an application on your current shared web host would be
The effect of network latency: Depending on location, every time you do a DB round trip from your application to the SQL Azure DB you will incur a 50-100ms delay. If your application does lots of round trips, this will mount up. Often, if an application has been designed to work with a DB on the LAN (you use of local client DBs suggests this) the they tend to get "chatty" since network delays are very small on the LAN. You may find your application slows down significantly.
Security: You will have to open up the SQL Azure firewall to the IP address(es) that your application presents when querying. Depending on your host, it may be that this IP address is shared between several tenants. This would be a vulnerability.
If neither of these is a problem, then SQL Azure will provide a much lower management overhead (e.g. no need to patch etc.) and will give you very high reliability, especially in terms of the risk of data loss.
I am developing a Visual Basic .NET application to be used by the staff of a small training centre nearby. The front-end (UI, menus, etc.) will all be in VB .NET, and there will be a back-end database for storing all of the required data, such as student records and meeting information.
What I would like to know is if it's possible to use a Microsoft Access database for this purpose, and have it accessible by all the staff in the centre (on the same network) at the same time. For example, would I be able to put the database in a shared network folder, and have a copy of the VB application on each PC that would all be able to read/edit/add to the database?
Advice would be appreciated as to how I should proceed. (Note: I would really prefer a method of doing this with MS Access as opposed to suggestions to switch to SQL, as Access was the requested platform)
Thanks in advance.
Yes it can be done and from a programming stand point it is any (much) different then using SQL Server. I think the biggest considerations you have to think about are:
How many simultaneous users do you expect to have using the application?
How secure does the application need to be? Is Access security enough?
How big do I expect the database to become in the next 1 to 5 years?
I think those are you biggest considerations when using Access as a data store and if your answers fall within the specs of Access capabilities then go for it. You can always migrate to SQL Server at a later time if you run into the limits of Access.
You did not mention the version of Access that you are using but a quick Google/Bing search should return specs for every version available.
Yes, but probably not advisable. Despite the disclaimer in your post, you should try to convince the powers to be to look at SQL Server Express instead-- it's free.
But, if Access is the database, all you need to do is have the database reside on a shared directory with full read-write capabilities for all the users. Hopefully when you say "staff of a small training centre", you mean it.
Install the VB.Net program on the client computers and setup the connection string with the path to the database.
Someone else with more recent Microsoft Access experience can probably give better hints on how to reduce the corruption factor. My own experience was to stay away from queries in Access-- have the Access database only for tables and do all of your queries with SQL statements in your client code. My corrupted databases reduced dramatically when I did that, but that was 10-15 years ago.
Back up the database religiously.
Yes, just make sure you chane the extension of your back end access db to your_database_name.be_accdb and it will start logging once the user start writing to it. But I recommend SQL sever
I am going to be putting a website up that will talk directly to a Microsoft SQL database that is hosted in a small office. I am debating between having the web server in the same office vs. hosting it with a professional hosting company. The trick is that the database must remain in the office because of internal software requirements.
Internet speeds at the office are 1.2 MB up / 5 MB down. Would it be feasible to have an off-site web server talk to the Microsoft SQL database in the office? I would restrict access to the database based on IP address. The website would not be high-traffic by any means.
Would it be feasible to have an off-site web server talk to the Microsoft SQL database in the office?
It's impossible to tell without seeing the site, but probably not, at least not on a permanent basis. Performance would most likely be horrible, and by tying the web site to the shop server, you will be making the availability of the web site depend on the availability of the shop's DSL connection. A power outage in the store would take down the web site, and the store owner's son downloading a pirated movie would slow down your app's order processing. :)
You probably should either do frequent data exports (instead of a permanent connection) from the store database to the online one, or have the database run remotely after all - it might be possible to work around the "database must be local" requirement using a VPN or something.
Speaking of database, I think that it is not a good idea to expose it online at all, since it seems to me from the requirements to keep the DB in office, that you are using it heavily for on-going work, aside from using it to display data on the (future) web-site. If someone hacks through into this database, it will not only harm your website, but also any other projects that depend on this DB.
Instead, you should have website use a replicated server, but never the master you are working on. I know it's overkill for you at the moment, but still, the gains in security IMHO by far outweigh a little bit of additional hassle.
Regarding the hosting issue - You should outsource the hosting, because there is less sys admin work for you - remember that if you are going to host your www site yourself, it means a 24/7 worry about availability etc.
Also, be careful with restricting the DB access by means of IP restriction only, as IPs can be spoofed. Make sure that other security measures are enforced as well.
Does anyone know if it's possible to host a SQL server in the cloud and connect an ASP.NET app hosted on DiscountASP?
I'd like to consolidate my SQL Server instances but keep the web app hosting where it's at. There are various reasons for I want to do this and I don't particularly want to get into it. I don't have any experience with cloud computing but I'm trying to wrap my head around it. It seems to be similar to standard hosting except for the metered billing and flexibility. If my idea is nuts and flawed, feel free to let me know, but be nice. ;-)
Yes, but subject to the following:
Unless your cloud provider offers a VPN or you otherwise encrypt the data, all traffic will be unencrypted over the internet
It will probably be slow as every DB operation goes over the internet.
Some cloud providers (Amazon for sure) charge for internet traffic but not for internal traffic.
Depnding on what features you use of SQL Server, SQL Azure hosting is close to production, it goes live for the US datacentres in January (PDC announcement) and billing for the service starts in February.
At present though the database limits are purely 1GB and 10GB which is a bit limiting, but if your data can be partitioned across databases and the app can be changed to understand this then the limitation is not so harsh.
It has limitations on functionality etc but it is a potential choice that could be investigated - but not the only one.