Basic email database

[emozley]

Hi,

I am writing a web application that will allow people to send each other messages (amongst other things). I've decided that a threaded approach is best and there would only be one copy of each message.

If I have a table called Threads and a table called Messages I can then have a third table that says what threads the user can see when they log in.

I think this is quite an efficient approach as the thread can have lots of messages linked to it however if a thousand users had a thousand thread headings in their 'inbox' that would mean a million rows in the database to keep track of things. I am worried that it is not very scalable - are there any alternative approaches documented? The database I am using on the server is MS Access with the front end coded in ASP.

Thanks very much

Ed

 

[PHV]

a thousand users ... the server is MS Access
Really ?

 

[emozley]

hopefully not logging in at the same time or I will run into serious problems!

E.

 

[PHV]

Anyway, a million of small rows properly indexed is not a big deal, even for MS Access.

 

[jrbarnett]

As PHV says, think how many concurrent users your system is likely to have, then work out whether Access is capable of handling that load on your server hardware. That's more likely to be a limiting factor than the total number of threads, users and messages.

If not, then certainly think about SQL Server Express or MySQL as your database.

John