Asked by
suriti rajpu
in
Computers & Technology
at
4:40 PM on April 17, 2009
alokgupta14's Answer
Microsoft Access is part of the Microsoft Office suite and is the most popular Windows desktop database application. It is targeted for the information worker market, and is the natural progression for managing data when the need for a relational database arises or after reaching the limits of Microsoft Excel.
Microsoft Access is used by programmers and non-programmers to create their own database solutions. Access tables support a variety of standard field types, indices, and referential integrity. Access also includes a very intuitive query interface, forms to display and enter data, and reports for printing. The underlying Jet database which contains these objects is multiuser aware and handles record locking and referential integrity including cascading updates and deletes.
Simple tasks can be automated through macros with point and click options. Microsoft Access is very popular among non-programmers who can create visually pleasing and relatively advanced solutions on their own. It is also easy to place a database on a network and have multiple users share and update data without overwriting each other’s work. Data is locked at the record level which is significantly different from Excel which locks the entire spreadsheet.
Microsoft offers a wide range of template databases within the program and for download from their web site. These options are available upon starting Access and allow users to quickly use and enhance a database with pre-defined tables, queries, forms, reports, and macros. Popular templates include tracking contacts, assets, issues, events, projects, and tasks. Templates do not include VBA code.
Microsoft Access also offers the ability for programmers to create solutions using the programming language Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which is similar to Visual Basic 6.0 and used throughout the Microsoft Office programs such as Excel, Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. Most VB6 code including the use of Windows API calls, can be used in VBA. Power users and developers can extend basic end-user solutions to a professional solution with advanced automation, data validation, error trapping, and multi-user support.
Database solutions created entirely in Microsoft Access are well suited for individual and workgroup use across a network. The number of simultaneous users that can be supported depends on the amount of data, the tasks being performed, level of use, and application design. Generally accepted limits are solutions with 1 GB or less of data (Access supports up to 2 GB) and 50 or fewer simultaneous users. This is appropriate for workgroup and department solutions where the total number of users number a few hundred.
Applications that simply view data or have simple data entry can support considerably more users. Applications that run complex queries or analysis across large datasets would naturally require greater bandwidth and memory. Microsoft Access is designed to scale to support more data and users by linking to multiple Access databases or using a backend database like SQL Server. With the latter design, the amount of data and users can scale to enterprise level solutions.
Microsoft Access is not appropriate for web based applications as its forms and reports only work in Windows. Therefore, it cannot be compared to an ASP.NET or Java/J2EE solution. The Access Jet database is a file based system and does not have the features of servers such as SQL Server, Oracle, or other ODBC compliant databases. It also doesn’t have the overhead, hardware, or licensing requirements of server based solutions. People can use Access databases for web based solutions when the number of users is small or if it's just delivering data without editing. Programs like Microsoft FrontPage and many ISPs offer Microsoft Access as a database storage option.
In enterprise environments, Microsoft Access is particularly appropriate for meeting end user da
Answered at
4:51 PM on April 17, 2009
Read all answers