Azure SQL Gateway/Data warehouse (1 Viewer)

[Cliff67]

Hi all

Has anyone had any dealing with Azure and connecting to tables. I'm trying to research ways of connecting my database backend to people in both the UK and USA

any ideas or guidance would be gratefully received. Some have said a mixture of VPN and Citrix/Terminal Server, but on the surface of it MS Azure looks like a viable option

many thanks in advanced

Cliff

 

[CJ_London]

I have used it for a limited number of users over a wide geographical area with front end on their local machines with reasonable success. Note that recordsources to forms/reports and combo/list rowsources need to be tuned to return minimum amount of data, and you need to ensure all dataprocessing is done on the server (so no use of vba functions in your query).

Azure requires a login identification of IP address, so you need all users to provide their IP address and add it in to 'valid users'. Azure is not suitable for users who connect from wherever they happen to be, be it office, home, coffee house, hotel or client premises. Office and home should be OK, but other locations not. You can widen the IP mask but you are then at extreme risk of being hacked.

Best solution is Citrix/terminal server with sql server/express back end and front ends stored on the server in each users local environment. That works from any device (including Apple), anywhere there is an internet connection with minimal risk of data corruption as a result of connection outages.

MS Azure looks like a viable option

only you can answer that - there is not a 'one size fits all' solution

 

[Cliff67]

Hi CJ

thanks for the insight

Cliff

 

[Lightwave]

Once you have an account and have created a database it is very easy to link it to MS Acces

FMS inc have a great web page on how to link Acces (most versions) to MS Azure
Its actually very easy

http://www.fmsinc.com/microsoftaccess/cloud/link-to-azure-sql-database.html

 

[Cliff67]

Hi Lightwave

thank you for the link. I've been going through the whole site and getting tonnes of info for my boss.

many thanks
Cliff