I am an Access Developer who has decided to take the leap into .Net and SQL Server apps. This book is my first experience with ASP.Net, though I have written a few small applications with VB. For a guy who "cut his teeth" using Access databases, I am wondering why there is SO much resistance towards using them in a web app. For that matter, if using Access is not desirable as a back end database for ASP.Net apps then why even include functionality for them?

The way I understand it (after completing chapters 11 and 12 in the book) is that when a request is made of the back end database, the connection is opened, the appropriate SQL is run, and that recordset is then rendered as HTML in the appropriate control. Why would this cause any problems in Access?

I am aware of the limitations that exist using a split database for desktop applications using Access regarding record locks and corruption problems. This is the main reason I am migrating away from it. It would seem to me (an obvious newbie in terms of ASP.Net) that the temporary nature of the connections made in ASP would remove this issue for applications that were being used by say no more than 20-30 people.

Certainly, Access could work well in small to medium sized web applications. I have seen many web sites successfully run on an Access database.

While Access is designed to handle multiple concurrent users, it's not as robust as the bigger DBMS's like SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL. Access is fine in low-user scenarios, both on the desktop as on a web server. You can successfully run a small to medium sized web site on an Access database with possibly hundreds or more visitors a day.

However, you'll find that Access has certain limitations. First and foremost: Access files can become corrupt, leading to the loss of all your data. This fear is more likely to become real on a high-volume web site with many users hitting the database. Secondly, Access won't scale up that well. Depending on the type of site (e.g. mostly read-only versus mostly data entry) your number of connections will be limited. The technical limitation is 255, but you're likely to hit the limits earlier.

Finally, Access is not as full featured as SQL Server or other database systems. Fancy support for Stored Procedures, triggers, the ability to backup log files, full text search, the SQL Agent, tools support, integration with VS 2008, and many many more make, IMO, SQL Server the better choice.

The good thing is: SQL Server Express is free; so you can easily try it out, see for yourself and then make a decision.

Cheers,

Imar

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Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
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Author of Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 : in C# and VB, Beginning ASP.NET Web Pages with WebMatrix
and Beginning ASP.NET 4 : in C# and VB.
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