NUMBER OF USERS

[Developerme]

I developed a access database program that is being used by several vendors.
One vendor has 55 users using the program. I have been approached by a vendor
who is interested but this vendor will have about 400 users accessing the
database. Does anyone have any experience regarding what the affects will be
usage wise with this many users?

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

I developed a access database program that is being used by several
vendors.
One vendor has 55 users using the program. I have been approached by a
vendor
who is interested but this vendor will have about 400 users accessing the
database. Does anyone have any experience regarding what the affects will
be
usage wise with this many users?

For that many users your back end database will have to be SQL server, but I
don't see a problem with having the MS access front ends installed on each
computer, and having all those users hit that one database.

 

[Developerme]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Based on your experience and just so I
know for future reference, how many users do you think I can go to based on
using the database supplied with Access?

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Based on your experience and just
so I
know for future reference, how many users do you think I can go to based
on
using the database supplied with Access?

The theoretical maximum number of users that can connect to a backend access
file share is 255.

However in actual practice I would not push access beyond 30 users without
moving the back end to sql server.

In your post, you already mention that you have up to 55 in one case, and
that's certainly getting high when talking about a ms-access back end. (that
means you must have that running on a very stable network, with very
reliable computers, and a good desing).

Much of how many users you can get out of your application often depends on
the design. We have many users here posting that with one or two users their
application runs too slow. We also have claims of people pushing access up
to 100 users on networks where everyting is just absolutely perfect.....

So, there's really no one particular number as to how many users you can
expect to be running on just what is called a file share.

Since Microsoft has several versions of SQL server for free these days, then
as you start to get up in the user account, there's little advantage or
reason not to use a server based system for the backend data. Of course, you
can well continue to use MS access for the front end part.

 

[Larry Linson]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Based on your experience and just
so I
know for future reference, how many users do you think I can go to based
on
using the database supplied with Access?

Albert may be a bit pessimistic. But, I have worked on Access clients to
server DB back ends with even fewer -- however, it was not number of users
that influenced the decision, it was a need for reliability and
recoverability.

Factors in how many users can be supported in multiuser include the
requirements, design, and implementation of the database application and the
hardware, software, and network environments. If all factors are near
perfect, we have reliable reports of over 100 concurrent users. Even if not
all factors are near perfect, we routinely see reports of 30 - 70 users.
But, in cases where we are rather sure that all are about as far from
perfect as can be, people have reported Access "falling over" with as few as
four users.

I'd venture to guess that if someone went out of their way to do everything
wrong, it would be possible to create a database that wouldn't even support
one or two users. <GRIN>

On the other hand... there is no practical limit to the number of Access
clients that can be used with a server back-end, on a LAN or WAN. I think
the largest number of users on a client-server application that I've worked
on was around 200. The number of concurrent users was far below "all",
though I am not aware what the maximum was on that application. I do know
that when the application was being developed, we were told that the most
users of which anyone could conceive was 50.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP