Upcoming Webcast/Video Show
SQL Server Database Snapshots: Are They Right for Me?
In this webcast, sponsored by Quest Software, SQL Server expert Tom LaRock will discuss SQL Server database snapshots and how you can implement them in your environment. He will outline the advantages and limitations of using these snapshots and investigate common use cases where they can successfully be deployed.
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> Live date: 9/9/2008 at 12:00pm (Noon) Pacific
Announcement: Downloadable Conference Sessions (lots of them!)
We’ve just announced that we’re offering download passes for the upcoming virtual conferences. You can now get a download pass and you’ll be able to download the sessions, all materials and such and have them available to you offline after the conferences complete. Between the 4 conferences (SharePoint, SQL Server, .NET Development, Business Intelligence), this is more than 120 sessions. Quite the opportunity to build your library for review later.
The conferences are nearly upon us – so get registered ASAP.
> SQL Server Conference
> Business Intellligence Conference
> .NET Developers Conference
> SharePoint Conference
Access and SQL Server – Building Applications
Daniel writes about how they’ve applied SQL Server, Access and SQL Server Express to build apps that leverage not only Access, but Office:
"In my career it has been very beneficial to know how to use Access well. It has its weaknesses but its strengths make it a pretty consistent development platform. You can do incremental development without reinventing the wheel each time. With a now standard flavor of VB and access to DAO and ADO you have a lot of options for how to leverage process and data in a user application. In previous versions you could create runtimes that packaged the application, closed off undesired development tools and even installed additional components that were required in your particular application. I don’t know if this is still the case in current versions of Access.
From an architectural perspective it is beneficial to have your development and reporting environment within the same software life cycle. The deployments are pretty stable and robust. We are working on a mobile application now that leverages occasionally connected access using SQL Express as a backend and SQL Server as a central database leveraging out of the box replication to manage data distribution to the in-the-field operational deployments. This new application (for us) is created with nothing but the office applications we now know how to support and license."
It’s pretty clear that Access is still pretty commonly used – as a front end to SQL Server and as a standalone environment. Frankly it used to be that Access was looked on as a tool to be kept away from SQL Server for performance and integration reasons. I know I’ve built my fair share of Access reports against SQL Server; it was always a goal though not to have direct interaction (controlled views and such) if at all possible. We’ve been seeing more and more that Access is being used in a "departmental tool" type of manner – and then security is applied to control what it has access to. Once that hurdle is passed, we’re able to give users the ability to poke around information, pull reports as they need to, even create some forms for reviewing detail data.
We do still shy away from using Access as an updateable front-end, but perhaps that will come to change as well. There are good form building tools that can be applied. I’m just a little old-fashioned in that regard, I suppose, preferring to have the application in more of a protected environment rather than in an environment that let’s users point, poke and click around a table without needing to know more about relationships and such.
Thanks for all of the feedback – great information!
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