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Hi Trey,

Most of the responses I've gotten agree that the Access database size is 
probably not the problem, but many still recommend upgrading to SQL Server.

Your experiences with the conversion from Access to SQL Server 2000 is just 
the type of thing I'm afraid of.  When I worked for Los Angeles County, a 
little before I retired a couple of years ago, we converted from an Access 
database to Oracle 8 and, if it hadn't been for my supervisor (who was a 
wiz), taking care of most of the administration, I think I would have had a 
lot more headaches with Oracle, and what I had was enough. That's one 
reason I'm leery of moving to SQL Server.

Also, I'm running only Windows 98 on my local computer. I was going to 
upgrade to Windows XP Pro, probably in the immediate future, because I'm 
getting tired of having to reboot and go thru scandisk at least once a day. 
Its my understanding that I will need to purchase SQL Server 2000 Developer 
to run Enterprise Manager in order to connect to the SQL database on the 
server. I thought I read on the Microsoft site, a little while ago, that 
SQL Server 2000 Developer edition will run on Windows XP, but when I was 
reading the specs the other day, I could not find it listed as a supported 
operating system for SQL Server 2000 Developer edition.

Does anyone on this list know if SQL Server 2000 Developer edition will run 
on Windows XP Pro?

I don't think dedicated hosting is an option for us though. Besides the 
fact that I doubt I could manage my own server, the cost would probably be 
prohibitive for us.  So I think we will stay with shared hosting and I 
would appreciate your passing my name along so I can find out what your 
Dallas guy has to offer.

As you suggested, I spent some time searching alt.www.webmasters, reading 
the discussions in the groups, doing general provider searches, as well as 
some specific providers that I am thinking of using.  Very interesting reading.

Thanks for taking the time to give me all this advice and information.

Betty Gerstner
bettyg@h...

At 09:01 AM 7/31/02 -0500, you wrote:

>Betty - Your hosting provider is incorrect.  The main issue with Access
>is number of tables - not so much table size.  The number of records you
>are running in Access is WELL (stressed) within the limits of Access.
>
>We run an Access database that has several tables with well over 5000
>records.  We have another 30 tables or so with anywhere from 1000 to 5
>records in each. Our DB is only about 4MB but we store a lot of Null and
>4 byte values. We run quite well.  This is a business for me so it HAS
>to be up.
>
>Now, we believe we are running at the limit of Access and are in the
>middle of a conversion to SQL Server.  My goodness...  what a nightmare.
>Makes me wanna puke.  If I ever get to a point where I actually
>understand what the heck happened to my application I will write an
>article.  I am having REAL trouble finding solid guidelines for
>upgrading to SQL server so if you run across anything, let me know.  I
>just don' have any SQL server experience and there seems to be some sort
>of really odd way SQL server is supplying data to the ASP record set
>object (it is related to char type columns but we can't find a
>consistent behavior pattern in sql server so... who knows....).
>
>There are other things - SQL server has no boolean type so they all have
>to be converted to int, SQL is different so all your embedded SQL
>commands will have to checked syntactically, and so on.  Those are
>rather easy.  But the char thing is kicking our butts.
>
>Anyway, I guees I am having fun typing b/c this is a rather long winded
>way to say "I don't think it is your database size.".  So, what else?
>If you are running on shared hosting I might suggest that you will never
>know for certain. Who knows what other people are running. The answer
>you hosting provider gave suggests to me that they don't know either.
>Dedicated hosting is expensive, though.
>
>If you decide on dedicated hosting, I can recommend Rackspace like no
>other.  I have been in hosting provider hell for two years. Shared
>hosting nearly killed my business.  I went through 6 different hosting
>providers.  All were terrible and cost me business.  Rackspace saved my
>bacon as a business and they were pretty reasonably priced.  But, you
>pretty much manage your own server so if you are not up to the task,
>then someone else is a better choice.
>
>If you do shared hosting, you might want to consider a different
>provider. It doesn't take too much to switch. I recommend searching
>alt.www.webmasters and searching the discussion on providers.  They are
>REAL Unix bigots over there but they talk about MS platforms, aslo.  I
>think you should go with a small guy - a small firm that really
>understands ASP and what they are doing. Read first - then post and ask.
>They appreciate people that have done their research first.
>
>If you want to stay with shared hosting, I can recommend a guy here in
>the states (Dallas).  I worked with him for about 2 years at a big web
>technology consulting firm (now defunct - 700 people to start - laid off
>600 in 1 year after the tech market crash). He is the best ASP
>programmer we ever had on staff and he now freelances and does web
>hosting.  He might very well me a perfect fit for you.  It may sound
>strange to go with someone small but, believe me, they give better
>service and their servers stay up. Let me know if you want me to pass
>your name along.
>
>OK, I gotta get back to work.  This has been a nice diversion.
>
>Take care,
>
>TW3

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