SQLEXPRESS and ADP

[pozzo]

As I could see in "Comments of SQLExpress", final paragraph
(http://www.databaseadvisors.com/gazette/sqlexpress.htm)

"....FWIW, the Access team has moved away from recommending
ADPs as a front-end to SQLS apps over the last year or so,
based on several public talks given by team members at
industry conferences. If you are contemplating new
development with Access as a FE to a SQLExpress BE, you'll likely
be ahead of the game with an efficiently-designed
MDB/linked table solution rather than an ADP."

I ask:

If I use MS Access 2003, say, as a FE with SQLExpress BE, "with an
efficiently-designed MDB/linked table solution rather than
an ADP", am I using a real client-server solution?
The performance will be better than Access with Access?

Thanks a lot
Renato

 

[Pat Hartman]

Yes, an Access .mdb/.mde linked to SQL server is a real client/server solution. The .adp made it easier to create triggers and stored procedures but it was lacking in many features that Access developers have come to know and love. But the .adp was not even close to being as good an interface as the SQL Enterprise manager. If you don't have Enterprise Manager available to you, you can still create an .adp as a substitute for the purpose of working with SQL objects. Your application would still be an .mdb/mde with linked tables.

The thing you need to keep in mind is that when you are using linked ODBC tables, it is IMPERATIVE that you base your forms and reports on queries that use selection criteria. If you don't, you loose the benefit of having a "real" RDBMS as a backend. If you don't use selection criteria, ALL rows of the table are ported across the network, just as they are with Jet tables.