ODBC/Access Response Time

[JesseH]

We use Access to connect to an AS400 using ODBC. The response time locally is very adequate. The problem is that our remote sites are getting very slow reponse times using the same programs that our local people use. We use T1 lines, so that is some help.

Question: Are there Access options that can set to have the processing be done on the server and just send the results to the user?

Do you have any suggestions to increase the throughput.

Thanks in Advance for the help.

Jesse H

 

[psemianonymous]

Windows Terminal Server is a good solution to connect your remote clients to a local Access app. It runs Access on the terminal server itself and sends screen updates to the remote client. With a non-Access backend storing the data, you'll probably have zero problems setting it up, and (in any case) zero reprogramming.


Performance over terminal server is excellent. Even my users connecting over 56Kbps were able to get acceptable performance, and for LAN/WAN connections, the difference was nearly unnoticeable.

Check out this page from Tony Toews (MS Access MVP) titled "random thoughts on Access, Terminal Server and/or Citrix":

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/terminalserver.htm

If it doesn't scare you away from using Terminal Server, nothing will.


Pete

 

[willir]

Jessie

Pete has given you probably the best answer if you have the money.

The problem with Access is that it sends the entire recordset to the desktop. On a local workstation, this should be fine. But when you get into WAN access and remote access, performance drops to a crawl.

You can do all sorts of stuff to optimize your application, but it will still be slow in comparison to LAN and local desktop access.

This is why the Terminal Server solution is cool -- most of the data traffic will between the terminal server and the Access database. Remote access to the terminal server will be mostly restricted to keyboard and graphics.

If you do not have resources for a Terminal Server, you may consider setting up replication. BUT your problem will be that you are using ODBC which will require some creativity on your part to make it work. You can create replicas of the Access database but how do you get to the AS400 data?