Online registration system & Access

[Michael M.]

I am developing an online event registration application
that will require a database that can store about 1,000
records and I am trying to decide whether we can use
Access for this. We anticipate getting around 200-300
hits on the application per day during the 3-4 week
registration period, with possibly 4-5 simultaneous users
at any given time. In addition to read-only access (for
the registration confirmation page), there will be some
transmittal of data involved via web-based forms.

If anyone out there has used Access for this type of
application, how did it hold up? Are we setting ourselves
up for disaster, or will Access be able to handle this
kind of traffic?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

 

[MD Websunlimited]

Hi Michael,

This is a load question ;>)

IMHO, Access should be able to handle it provided that the database is well designed and in the third normal form. This is based
upon using your numbers, see Numbers below, and a coast to coast 10 hour day 300 / 10 hours = 30 per hour or 1 transaction every
two minutes.

The questions are: How are the registrants being advised and is it graduated or in bulk?

Numbers:

I question the numbers here but it may be due to incomplete information and assumptions. First, with only 1000 records, I've assumed
that will be the number of registrants and if so then the other numbers don't make sense. If you use the 30 transactions per hour
then it would take 33h 18m or roughly a little more than 3 days, based upon the coast to coast 10 hour day, to complete the
registration process.


HTH,
--
Mike -- FrontPage MVP '97-'02
http://www.websunlimited.com
J-Bots Plus 2002 87 components for FrontPage
http://www.websunlimited.com/order/Product/JBP2002/jbp_help_dir.htm
FrontPage Add-ins Since '97 2003 / 2002 / 2000 Compatible

 

[Michael M.]

Mike, thanks for your quick response. You're right that
the numbers don't really add up. We're not really sure
what the traffic is going to be like so I was just
throwing out some rough estimates. The bottom line is
that during the 1-3 week registration period, we may run
into peak periods where 200-300 users attempt to register
within a day or so. The total number of registrants we
expect to have for the entire registration period would
probably top out at around 1,000.

I'm not sure what you mean by "graduated or in bulk," but
if you are asking whether the web registration forms will
be filled in individually by the end users or by way of
some kind of group process (where several registrants from
the same company get signed up at once, perhaps), the
answer is the former. Also, the only "advising" involved
will be the instructions provided with the web forms --
there won't be any live chat / guidance functionality if
that's what you have in mind.

Hope that helps. If you would have any qualms at all
about using Access for an online registration system,
please let me know.

Thanks again.

-----Original Message-----
Hi Michael,

This is a load question ;>)

IMHO, Access should be able to handle it provided that

the database is well designed and in the third normal
form. This is based

upon using your numbers, see Numbers below, and a coast

to coast 10 hour day 300 / 10 hours = 30 per hour or 1
transaction every

two minutes.

The questions are: How are the registrants being advised

and is it graduated or in bulk?

Numbers:

I question the numbers here but it may be due to

incomplete information and assumptions. First, with only
1000 records, I've assumed

that will be the number of registrants and if so then the

other numbers don't make sense. If you use the 30
transactions per hour

then it would take 33h 18m or roughly a little more than

3 days, based upon the coast to coast 10 hour day, to
complete the

registration process.


HTH,
--
Mike -- FrontPage MVP '97-'02
http://www.websunlimited.com
J-Bots Plus 2002 87 components for FrontPage
http://www.websunlimited.com/order/Product/JBP2002/jbp_hel p_dir.htm
FrontPage Add-ins Since '97 2003 / 2002 / 2000 Compatible








"Michael M." <[email protected]> wrote

in message news:[email protected]...

 

[MD Websunlimited]

Michael,

What I mean graduated, is if you are notifying the registrants that registration is available and are doing it by email, then if you
only email out the 300 per day. In that case you'd limit the impact on the application, db and others on the server. If doing so by
mail then sending it out in groups per day.

I would use Access without any qualms based upon the requirements as I understand them.

 

[Michael M.]

Thanks again, Mike. I like your suggestion about taking a
graduated approach to help manage the traffic.

Michael M.

-----Original Message-----
Michael,

What I mean graduated, is if you are notifying the

registrants that registration is available and are doing
it by email, then if you

only email out the 300 per day. In that case you'd limit

the impact on the application, db and others on the
server. If doing so by

mail then sending it out in groups per day.

I would use Access without any qualms based upon the

requirements as I understand them.

--
Mike -- FrontPage MVP '97 - '02
http://www.websunlimited.com


"Michael M." <[email protected]> wrote

in message news:[email protected]...