To share an MS Access 2000 app between two geographic locations, should I convert the app to a .NET

I developed a VB6 client/server Microsoft Access 2000 application for a charitable organization. The organization now has two locations and would like to use the application at both locations sharing one central database. Both locations have a Windows 2000 server with DSL providing access to the Internet. Is this a case for .NET, converting this to a Web-based application, or a case for replication of the Access 2000 database at each point via client/server?
You didn't mention it in your question, but I'm assuming that the charity is most likely using an ISP for domain hosting. If that's the case, there's not much you can do as it'll be nearly impossible to get one machine to see the other without making the charity go through the complete hassle of hosting its own domain with all of those management and security headaches or requiring something like SQL Server to run at the ISP.

What you may be able to do is save out the day's changes to a file and e-mail that file over to the other machine. On the other machine, it could look at its day's changes and attempt to reconcile the differences. It's not a great solution, but would be a lot easier and cost the charity less money.

This was first published in December 2002

Join the conversationComment

Share
Comments

    Results

    Contribute to the conversation

    All fields are required. Comments will appear at the bottom of the article.
    Back to top