What to use when Access can't handle the volume of data?

[xyzer]

I have used Access in large companies and small, but I know once the volumeor flow of data becomes too large (say, like at a company like Wal-Mart) you have to use something "more powerful."

What are people using at these larger companies when Access won't cut it? SQL Server? Oracle/SAP? How does the SQL Server interface differ from Access? Or am I wrong and is it usually the hardware that needs upgrading or both? Forgive me I know enough to know my terminology in the context I'm using it will probably make some of you roll your eyes, but not enough to know exactly where my thinking is off.

 

[xyzer]

And I guess my main question is for someone who knows Access but is not necessarily "fluent" in SQL per se, how difficult is it to learn the interfaceand functionality of these other programs?

 

[John W. Vinson]

I have used Access in large companies and small, but I know once the volume or flow of data becomes too large (say, like at a company like Wal-Mart) you have to use something "more powerful."

What are people using at these larger companies when Access won't cut it? SQL Server? Oracle/SAP? How does the SQL Server interface differ from Access? Or am I wrong and is it usually the hardware that needs upgrading or both? Forgive me I know enough to know my terminology in the context I'm using it will probably make some of you roll your eyes, but not enough to know exactly where my thinking is off.

Bingoogle for "ACCESS SQL" and you'll find quite a bit of discussion.

Tony Toews, Microsoft MVP and general good guy, has summarized the subject
with several links:

http://granite.ab.ca/access/sqlserverupsizing.htm

Big companies will typically use a big clent-server database - SQL/Server,
Oracle, and some others. I haven't done market research on this area lately
but those were the biggies a few years ago.

Most of them will have IT departments doing customized database programming,
usually over the web, to provide the user interface. Look at the screen of the
clerk at Wal-Mart or the ticket agent at the airport next time you fly or the
website of any big business - and you're very likely looking at data from a
SQL/Server or Oracle database.

My original introduction to Access, years ago, was in the context of using it
as a frontend to a corporate Oracle database.
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]
Microsoft's replacements for these newsgroups:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/accessdev/
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/addbuz/
and see also http://www.utteraccess.com

 

[Access Developer]

Access' strong point has long been that it can, via ODBC and other access
approaches, use almost any server database as its data store. Thus you can
have your "client application" in Access, on the user's machine, linked to a
server database on your network, or (through one of several methods) on the
Internet ("in the cloud", in today's terminology).

Over half the contract work that I've done with Access used a server
database backend datastore, including Informix (back before IBM bought
Informix), a few flavors of Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server. Not all of
those configurations were to cope with volume; many of them had volume that
could have been handled with an Access database, but were designed to use
the server instead for reliability and recoverability.

--
Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-Author, Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions, Wiley 2010

I have used Access in large companies and small, but I know once the volume
or flow of data becomes too large (say, like at a company like Wal-Mart) you
have to use something "more powerful."

What are people using at these larger companies when Access won't cut it?
SQL Server? Oracle/SAP? How does the SQL Server interface differ from
Access? Or am I wrong and is it usually the hardware that needs upgrading or
both? Forgive me I know enough to know my terminology in the context I'm
using it will probably make some of you roll your eyes, but not enough to
know exactly where my thinking is off.