I'm a lowly applications programmer (one of three IT employees total) in a
company that's about 40 personnel strong in management and 50 personnel
strong in production.
We have a shared drive that has about 81 Access databases in it (total of
1.25 Gigs of information) that have been made since Access 2.0 was available
all chucked full of custom software mostly using DAO for data access. All of
them are in Access 97 format. It's just a huge blob of interconnected
databases and my opinion is it's time for them to go!
So, I'm looking for migration stories. I know there are others out there who
have been in this situation and I'm wondering if you can comment a little
about your particular scenario. Was it cost effective in the end, was it
worth the hassle, tips & tricks, and how you finally managed to win your
management over to the idea of shilling out the dollars for a real DBMS.
Thanks!
CaseyYou may want to check out Russell Sinclair's book:
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=74
Tom
---
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
SQL Server MVP
Columnist, SQL Server Professional
Toronto, ON Canada
www.pinnaclepublishing.com/sql
"Casey" <clengacher@.smcky.com> wrote in message
news:e5i2W352DHA.1736@.TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
Greetings:
I'm a lowly applications programmer (one of three IT employees total) in a
company that's about 40 personnel strong in management and 50 personnel
strong in production.
We have a shared drive that has about 81 Access databases in it (total of
1.25 Gigs of information) that have been made since Access 2.0 was available
all chucked full of custom software mostly using DAO for data access. All of
them are in Access 97 format. It's just a huge blob of interconnected
databases and my opinion is it's time for them to go!
So, I'm looking for migration stories. I know there are others out there who
have been in this situation and I'm wondering if you can comment a little
about your particular scenario. Was it cost effective in the end, was it
worth the hassle, tips & tricks, and how you finally managed to win your
management over to the idea of shilling out the dollars for a real DBMS.
Thanks!
Casey|||Management only hears the sound of money. Any changes you suggest must have
some impact on general productivity of the company or IT management costs.
Simplistically, if you can demonstrate that spending $20,000 on hardware and
$30,000 on development will increase productivity of 90 employees by 5%,
then there is a direct connection in the management's mind to the bottom
line and your suggested changes. If all you do is make snarky comments about
the in-efficiency of the system, then nobody will hear you. So you really
need to create a solid, justifiable business case for what you think is
obvious.
One approach is to break the problem into small enough chunks that
management is able to tolerate the risk. If you tell them you want to
consolidate the entire 81 databases into an integrated, seamless
productivity solution, it might scare the hell out of them and they'll shut
you down with little deliberation. But if you suggest a smaller prototype
project that takes a few of these databases and makes them more effecient,
then you have a proof-of-concept that can be applied to the whole mess. Once
you demonstrate some success, then the rest is easier to sell.
As an aside, I can't imagine any logical reason for 81 different databases
to manage an organization that size.And in Access, no less.
Oy!
Good luck, lowly applications programmer
Bob Castleman
SuccessWare Software
"Casey" <clengacher@.smcky.com> wrote in message
news:e5i2W352DHA.1736@.TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
quote:
> Greetings:
> I'm a lowly applications programmer (one of three IT employees total) in a
> company that's about 40 personnel strong in management and 50 personnel
> strong in production.
> We have a shared drive that has about 81 Access databases in it (total of
> 1.25 Gigs of information) that have been made since Access 2.0 was
available
quote:
> all chucked full of custom software mostly using DAO for data access. All
of
quote:
> them are in Access 97 format. It's just a huge blob of interconnected
> databases and my opinion is it's time for them to go!
> So, I'm looking for migration stories. I know there are others out there
who
quote:
> have been in this situation and I'm wondering if you can comment a little
> about your particular scenario. Was it cost effective in the end, was it
> worth the hassle, tips & tricks, and how you finally managed to win your
> management over to the idea of shilling out the dollars for a real DBMS.
> Thanks!
> Casey
>
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