customer website running on access db

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Posted by sproket90, 05-15-2006, 04:34 PM
Hi, I am reseller and have a customer that is using access db and asp pages. every couple of weeks my host has to reset IIS on my server because the website basically stops responding... log file saying out of resources They are recommending to move from access to mssql or mysql. Is this typical for a website written in access and asp..? Thanks, sproket90
Posted by cartika-andrew, 05-15-2006, 05:04 PM
Hello sproket, msaccess can certainly be a little intensive, but generally speaking, you should be able to run this without issue. May I ask how large this access DB is? how much traffic is this site getting? It is almost always advisable to use a platform like ms sql or mysql vs ms access, however, access certainly has its place, and if we are talking about a small db and a small site, I am not particular it is worth the investment to recode for a new platform.
Posted by sproket90, 05-15-2006, 06:15 PM
the database is 1/2 a meg in size. but it is on a hsphere cluster. so my host is indicating that there are several other companies running ms access db's. so they are suggesting moving to ms sql to have less issues. which I agree, having used ms products for a long time. however I am not a web designer so don't have a good grasp of what it would take. thanks, sproket90
Posted by cartika-andrew, 05-15-2006, 06:19 PM
Hello sproket? How many times is this access db being queried? If its a low traffic site with few queries, you should have no problem running this. However, your host may be seeing things that I have missed - maybe you are quering this thing 1000's of times per minutes and its causing issues.
Posted by (Stephen), 05-15-2006, 06:32 PM
The biggest issue I see with access, regardless of size, is code that does not properly close the connections. This then allows the access db to continaully reside in memory until it exhausts the memory fully and the site goes down with really odd errors that sometimes do not mean what they say. The other thing that happens is sometimes someone is running a site on access and tries to download the file with FTP, creating a file lock making it unable to work on IIS until you resolve it by: 1. reset IIS 2. on windows 2003 sometimes a pool recycle will fix, but not always.
Posted by CyberHostPro, 05-15-2006, 06:51 PM
Hi Ask your host to give this website its own application pool with a recycle script so if it does go down, theres scripts that will reset the pool.
Posted by sproket90, 05-15-2006, 07:47 PM
Thanks for all the replies. I really like my hosting company and don't want to move, as I fear I will have the same problem on another site and the current hosting company is very responsive. It is being queried every 5 minutes by a siteuptime script by my customer. Plus several sites on the same server are using access. I have several other sites on the same server that are fine and never blip. the message I got today in the log file was "out of resources" which would agree with this statement. every couple of weeks it becomes non-responsive. and the host restarts IIS and it is fixed. I don't want to blame the web designer but I am going to push to move to sql. They keep hammering me for the site being down, but the server is up, ftp and email are flowing, just their app is broke. thanks for all the suggestions. sproket90
Posted by (Stephen), 05-15-2006, 09:56 PM
First, Chris' suggestion is good, and most hosts that use windows 2003 and know what they are doing can do this for you. Secondly, you are on the right track with not "blaming" the web developer, many of them just don't know the severe limits of Access, they develop on a home PC where IIS doesn't stay up 1 day, much less one week, so they don't have problems. Access problems also don't crop up until they get a few simultaneous hits. I'd try to do a little user education if possible, and point out that SQL is the best way to grow, being with Access you will be stuck with a site that will crash with larger amounts of visitors in the long term. In the end, make the upgrade pleasant and appealing now, before it becomes a chore tomorrow(in the future). MS Access has a half decent SQL upsize wizard, and it works pretty well for most databases.