how big can I get with access and asp?

[akohl]

I know how develop with asp and access and I will be doing an online bookshop. At first, the shop will handle an inventory of a few hundred products and not more than a few dozen orders per day (hopefully!). But there is an expectation that at a later stage the application will be upgraded to handle and inventory of perhaps a few thousand items and perhaps even a greater volume of business.

Does it make sense to start with access and asp since I know how to use it and don't have time to learn something else, especially since all the ecomerce stuff will be new to me as well. If so, at what stage will I have to move on to other technologies and what would they be? (mysql,php?;asp .net?)

Thanks much

[Umair.ms]

Moving from ASP/Access to PHP/MySQL would never help. Access lets you migrate your data to a SQL Server database at any time you like.

If that later stage is going to be very soon (a couple of months), it would be better if you start right from SQL Server. You can make use of several features of SQL Server that are not provided with Access or MySQL (for example: transactions, stored procedures, etc).

[pip]

I myself is also into ASP and Access, and pretty much in the same situation as you. I am limited by time to the growth of technology, and it sinks right into my irritated bits. But as far as I know, the amount of entries in your DB should not exceed a million. I know that when Microsoft took over Hotmail, they used an Access database, and it crashed when the DB reached a million entires. So if you're talking about thousands or houndreds of thousands, I don't think it should be such a big hassle, although I have not tired/developed such a big access DB before, so whot do I know right?

Just thought I'd post my understanding

[iTec]

Originally posted by pip
I know that when Microsoft took over Hotmail, they used an Access database,

actually for the first few years that microsoft owned hotmail it was running on a linux server... it was always one of those ironic things about microsoft... touting the power of there server, yet hotmail (one of there most popular sites) was running on linux.

as for what to do... i would most likely start off from the start with SQL, forget about access as it may not have the power you are after especially if your get enough visitors to your site and searching a few thousand products would be terrably slow on an access database, however with SQL server, your site would not only be quicker but a heck of alot more stable and you have less chance of the database corrupting itself,

development wise there is very little difference beetween Access and SQL Server, do it right the first time and it will save you the headaches down the track.

[dhtmlgod]

Originally posted by iTec


actually for the first few years that microsoft owned hotmail it was running on a linux server... it was always one of those ironic things about microsoft... touting the power of there server, yet hotmail (one of there most popular sites) was running on linux.

as for what to do... i would most likely start off from the start with SQL, forget about access as it may not have the power you are after especially if your get enough visitors to your site and searching a few thousand products would be terrably slow on an access database, however with SQL server, your site would not only be quicker but a heck of alot more stable and you have less chance of the database corrupting itself,

development wise there is very little difference beetween Access and SQL Server, do it right the first time and it will save you the headaches down the track.

Not only that, but it you even get the chance to pay a fortune!! I've got a reseller account, and they charge £25 (about &$40 I think) a month I think per SQL Server database

Realistically(sp?), if your expecting about 400 or so people a day at your site, you might want to look at SQL Server. I think really your going to have to sit and think where your site is going, and how many visitors your more than likely going to get.

I generally get about 50-80 visitors a day to my e4ums site (yes, I know, that sucks) and it runs fine.

Access isn't really as bad as eveyone makes out. I made an ASP search for a client of ours on an access database with 300,000 records, even tho microsoft tech support insists access would only work comfortably on the web with 60,000.

Well, thats just me 2 cents. If you want to build a high traffic website for the least amout money, you might want to look into using MySQL with ASP, tho I don't know any hosts that support it, anyone?

[m1l]

Access would definately cope with the amounts of data you are talking about, it starts to struggle when you try to go multi user, I'm not 100% sure but I think it table locks not record lock, so you can get the site hanging because someone has locked the table.

If you can afford it, go for SQL Server straight away, there are some difference between Access and SQL server (for example now() = getdate() in SQL server) and there are others. If you really can't afford SQL server, go for Access and upgrade later, there will be some extra work but so be it. If you want to go MySQL, look for a host which as Chillisoft ASP and MySQL.

Hope this helps.

[akohl]

So I guess the bottom line is that if I want to stick with microsoft stuff all the way, its gonna cost money when I switch from access to sql server. But in the mean time, I can use access comfortably with my few dozen purchases (please G-d) a day.Another interesting point made here is that I might be able to use asp with mysql, which is free, right? But then learning to work with mysql will be an issue even if the web page scripting is not, right?

What about asp .net. Is that relevant to this discussion at all?

[KodeKrash]

Some REAL world figures on MS Access and it's data handling facilities at InteliDev: Access Under Fire.

[dhtmlgod]

I was going to e-mail you for that link, kode

[KodeKrash]

Then why didn't you email me, D? My email address(s) arn't exactly hard to remember.

[dhtmlgod]

I didn't have time to open outlook, type and e-mail, choose which e-mail to send it then send it...

[m1l]

Just to add some real life examples to kodekrash tests.

4 years ago I worked on (data extraction and manipulation) an Access database that was over 300meg in size and had tables with many millions of rows. In the 4 month contract, it didn't once corrupt, so single user it is pretty resiliant at big size.

[Papelote]

What I have tosay, you´ll probably know already, but as it hasn´t been said...

Access has a problem with multi-using

Ten or more simultaneous users will hang the stuff.