I was surprised to hear late last week that Microsoft’s Access and FoxPro lines are being migrated to Azure offerings, much like the HDInsight and various database and database offerings from Microsoft. I initially had a hard time understanding the "Why" of the change, but it does make sense.
If you think about how you need to secure your access systems, and the numbers of departmental databases and applications that are in your environment, it becomes clear that centralizing these could be a big boon to finally getting a handle on your systems. Apparently the beta registration will be up on the Azure site – you can apply now and get in early so you can take part in the offering.
This also helps address end of life issues with FoxPro, which had previously announced that the next revision would not be released as a commercial product. It breathes life into the platform, while at the same time working to bring it under the Azure umbrella.
For your own applications, the implications of both of these moves is pretty significant. I think moving applications based on these environments may be more challenging that moving a SQL Server-type environment. I think this partly because SQL Server architecture tends to lend itself more to the cloud-based Azure world. When you consider the changes to your systems that may be required to move the Access-based solutions to the cloud, the process may be more involved. I’m hopeful that the work on the wizard they’re outlining on the site will help address some of these migration issues.
What does this do for your own applications? Will it help you gain some additional utility for these environments? Will this help secure your Access and FoxPro-based systems? What level of effort will be needed to support this type of move for your environment?
My gut feeling is that it’ll take more than four months and one day to convert, but I could be wrong.
What do you think? Let me know…
swynk@sswug.org