Query on backend hosting

[George J]

I'm afraid I know even less about servers that I do about Access, but wanted some opinions on where you think I should put the database.

Frontend will be Access 2013
Backend will be put on SQL (not MySQL)

We have offices in 5 different cities that will be accessing this and while I don't think more than 40 users will be in it at any one time (at absolute most), there will be about 140 users.

We have looked at putting this on the cloud and we asked our ISP if they can provide access to a SQL server - we don't have one. They have suggested using a VPS (VPN) site. Is this a good idea?

We are not looking to use the database in any way on a website or app. We just want the users to be able to get the data from the backend.

Would it be better for us to buy our own server or would a VPS be suitable for our requirements? Would be need any additional software? Also, I've read that after you get access to the server, it's basically up to you to manage it - some provide a managed service, but I don't know if that amounts to more than being able to send them a help request ticket.

Has anyone any experience of VPS and would this amount of users cause any problems? Any opinions or alternatives would be most appreciated. As this is a business database, i'm also concerned about security - are hackers going to be a problem?

Sorry for rambling, but all advice or comments would be welcome.

 

[James Dudden]

If you rented a hosted server then this could get costly with that amount of users as you normally have to pay a fee per user per month and extra for software licenses.

Having your own server would seem the better option though this would mean you would have to maintain it and if you required 24/7 up time then this would require someone on hand all the time in case of emergencies though you could probably pay a 3rd party company to do this.