Possibly converting Access back-end to MySQL on Linux 1

[Sam92Legacy]

We have a proprietary MS Access D/B that currently has 12,000 records (it will eventually have over 100,000) and will be shared by three machines locally and 2-4 clients simultaneously through VPN. We just bought a Linux server (w. a RAID and Samba) and were planning to just put the Access back-end on the server and have the clients run the front-ends.

I am wondering if it makes sense (i.e., would be faster and give better data integrety) to convert the datafile to MySQL, or is our use small enough where converting doesn't make sense? Also, what are the potential pitfalls in converting the back-end? BTW, our network will be 100baseT and a T1 to host remote clients, so network impediments should be as minor as possible.

Many thanks for assisting a MySQL newbie,

Sam

 

[sleipnir214]

Whenever you are doing anything that requires multiple clients accessing the same data simultaneously, I always strongly recommend using a database server.

Access was engineered to be a single-user database application. Mi?ro$oft has since added functionality to allow multiple users at once, but it's really not up to the test, particularly over a WAN. You run a greatly increased risk of data corruption.

Access also integrates tightly with Win32's filesystem. Although Samba does a good job simulating everything, it's not the same. I have had locking problems with Access over Samba.

There are some gotchas to keep in mind. If you are planning to use the MyODBC driver with Mi?ro$oft's ODBC subsystem, please take a look here:

http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/MyODBC_clients.html

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