Category Archives: Microsoft Access 2013

Feb 18

Attending the Microsoft MVP Summit in Bellevue/Redmond, WA

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I’m attending the annual Microsoft MVP Global Summit this week in Bellevue and Redmond, WA. This is actually my first experience at this event as I was awarded the MVP title this past summer for my support of Microsoft Access.

Over the years, FMS has had several Microsoft MVPs for Access including Dan Haught, Steve Clark, and Jim Ferguson who was one of the original MVPs when the program started 20 years ago. Book author Alison Balter and Portland Access User Group leader Jack Stockton join me as new MVPs this year. Last night we had a nice kickoff event with fellow Microsoft Access MVPs.

The MVP conference brings together 1500 professionals from across the world to this conference. The MVPs cover all the different product groups for Microsoft which offers a wonderful mix of expertise and enthusiasm. Over the next few days, the different Microsoft product groups will be providing presentations to attendees in an NDA environment. Sorry, I can’t share the content, but I can say it impacts our future planning.

Yesterday, they had a showcase of a variety of technologies from MVPs in the US plus companies from Taiwan, Japan, Germany, China, India, etc. It’s great to see the global impact of Microsoft.

How do you become an MVP? The usual path is to be involved in public forums answering questions and becoming an expert in the field. You don’t need to own a business to be an MVP. Other ways to be selected are to increase your professional visibility through products, writing books, blogs, etc. The MVP program is designed to recognize individuals who influence the market and help the community maximize the value of Microsoft products. So whether it’s XBox, Bing Maps, Dynamics, Exchange, Office 365, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Visual Studio, Windows Phone, Word, etc., if you have a passion, expertise, and a willingness to share, the MVP community could be part of your future. Good luck!

May 31

Microsoft Access Database Scalability: How many users can it support?

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What’s the Maximum Number of Microsoft Access Users?

Microsoft Access 2013There is a persistent myth that Microsoft Access Jet databases can only support 20 or so users. Here’s my response to a recent inquiry:

I flatly refute any suggestions that Microsoft Access users are limited to around 30. We’ve run many tests and have never seen that kind of degradation in performance. It is a myth from Access 2.0 days that was eliminated with Access 97 almost two decades ago.

A poorly designed Access database won’t support two users, but a well designed Access solution can support hundreds of users. Of course, what matters is the number of simultaneous users, and what they’re doing.

At Least 200 Simultaneous Microsoft Access Users on an Access/Jet Database

If everyone is just viewing data or entering data into a table, that takes very little work and a large number of people (well over 200) can be supported. People cannot type faster than what Access can handle. If users are all running massive reports and queries with data updates, that can still be done but performance would be an issue which applies to any technology, so testing and optimization would be necessary.

Migrate Back-End Access Database to Microsoft SQL Server for More Users

Microsoft SQL ServerIf the back-end database is in SQL Server rather than an Access/Jet database, the number of users can be practically unlimited if each user has their own front-end copy of the Access application. Performance issues still apply based on what they are doing. In some cases SQL Server is slower than Access, so it is important to understand the situation before thinking SQL Server is the answer.

All that said, any Access application that is distributed to others with shared data should be a split database design. Here are a few resources we’ve written:

Total Access StartupSimplify Support for All the Users of Your Access Databases

Total Access Startup helps with the distribution of databases to each user’s desktop, and launching it with the right version of Microsoft Access.

This allows you to centrally support a large number of Access users across your network and ensure everyone is using the latest version of your application. It also simplifies the migration from one version of Access to another.

Additional Discussions

This topic was also discussed on the Microsoft Developer Network, Microsoft Access Database Scalability: How many users can it support?

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