Microsoft Office 2000/Visual Basic Programmer's Guide

Multiuser Database Solution Architectures

Microsoft Access provides four main ways of working with a database that is shared among multiple users on a network:

• File-server solutions   Solutions that share an Access database (.mdb) that is placed on a network share so that it can be shared by multiple users.
  
  
• Client/server solutions   Solutions that use a client application, for example, an Access project file (.adp) containing forms and code that connects to a remote database server, such as SQL Server, to share data between multiple users. Copies of the client application are distributed to all users so that they can access the server database from their own computer.
  
  
• Database replication solutions   Solutions that use database replication to share an Access database among multiple users. Database replication is the process of sharing data or database design changes between copies of an Access database in different locations without having to redistribute copies of the entire database. Replication involves producing one or more copies, called replicas, of a single original database, called the Design Master. Together, the Design Master and its replicas are called a replica set. By performing a process called synchronization, changes to objects and data are distributed to all members of the replica set. Changes to the design of objects can only be made in the Design Master, but changes to data can be made from any member of the replica set.

  Note   SQL Server also provides replication features that use a different "publish and subscribe" model. For more information about SQL Server replication features, see SQL Server Books Online.

• Web-based database solutions   Solutions that use one or more Web pages as the front-end client application connected to a shared Access or SQL Server database.

This chapter provides an overview of the first three Access database solution architectures listed above, the tools Access provides for creating multiuser database solutions, and discussions of multiuser database solution design and implementation issues.