You can get a lot of information regarding MYSQL from their website at http://www.mysql.com - http://www.mysql.com this is an open source database product so you can install/use it for free.

There's been some discussion going around that MS will be dropping Access within a couple of years in favor of a light version of MS SQL. They currently offer MSDE for free which is a throttled version of MS SQL. Outperforms Access but only has command line db management services although you can get free windows and web based management gui's for it.

As of last month MS dropped the MS SQL developer edition to $50 US (Also seen it for under $40 US). Contains the throttled MS SQL, but also the full management console suite (Enterprise Manager) and SQL Server Books Online. Getting just Enterprise Manager is a great buy at $50.

Apparently, over the next year, MS will be releasing stuff to make MSDE more user friendly. Apparently, their goal is to reproduce all the funtionality in MS Office Access for the MS SQL light version. Don't know what they're going to do about licensing for web hosting companies. Right now, an Access license is cheap and a MS SQL license is megabucks. Might drive some companies who only offer MS Access to go to MySql.

dpyers wrote: As of last month MS dropped the MS SQL developer edition to $50 US (Also seen it for under $40 US). Contains the throttled MS SQL, but also the full management console suite (Enterprise Manager) and SQL Server Books Online. Getting just Enterprise Manager is a great buy at $50.

HOLY Mother of God!

I haven't really been paying attention to pricing lately, but "a great buy" is such a massive understatement that it borders on irresponsible...

Access is a waste of time for anything except very small databases. Great for personal contacts and CD collections, and blah blah. It does have one large advantage over MySQL in that it is an RDBMS. MySQL is not an RDBMS. But it is well supported and free. But for $50... There's still no contest - MS SQL Server wins hands down over MySQL at that price.

MySQL is not well suited for some tasks. You'll always hear people saying that it is "great for web stuff". Which is true. Step it up a few notches and you're in trouble. I'm guessing that there are few people here that need that kind of power though.

However, when it comes to power, most people don't need all the power MS SQL Server offers either - but the real advantage there is that it is a true RDBMS, which can guarantee the integrity of your data. Something that MySQL can't do.

If you need something that is well proven, is a true RDBMS, can get on the cheap, and still packs a punch, then look into PostGreSQL. It is better suited to nix systems, but... it's also free.

If you need reliability and data integrity for a relatively small application (thousands of records) that has a limited number of simultaneous users (10~30 max), then Access is fine. If you have more users, then PostGreSQL. If you don't care about data integrity, then MySQL. If you want a tac-nuke, then MS SQL Server.

If you want it easy, then 1) Access, 2) MS SQL Server, 3) MySQL, 4) PostGreSQL.

dpyers wrote: As of last month MS dropped the MS SQL developer edition to $50 US (Also seen it for under $40 US). Contains the throttled MS SQL, but also the full management console suite (Enterprise Manager) and SQL Server Books Online. Getting just Enterprise Manager is a great buy at $50.

US$50 sounds very cheap. Do you not have to own like MSDN or something first before you can get MSSQL at $50. If not then please tell me where you saw it for this price.

Bluefrog wrote: .... MySQL is not an RDBMS.

Just wanted to say here for the record that MYSQL IS an RDBMS.. The exceprt below is directly from the online manual at http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Introduction.html#Introduction - http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_In troduction.html#Introduction

=Tegwin US$50 sounds very cheap. Do you not have to own like MSDN or something first before you can get MSSQL at $50. If not then please tell me where you saw it for this price.

You don't need MSDN. The developer edition db is throttled - 2 gb limit, 5 concurrent workload/batch streams (NOT the same as 5 concurrent connections). You also get the license to distribute MSDE if you're developing desktop/lan apps.

Great tool for developing web apps, and Enterprise manager is worth it's weight in gold for managing and deploying the db.

Couple of links...

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/development.asp - http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/development.asp  - General info on the 3 MSSQL developer versions offered. The one for $50 is just the DB and Enterprise Manager. The others contain various other servers and programs.

http://shop.microsoft.com/Referral/productInfo.asp?siteID=10145 - http://shop.microsoft.com/Referral/productInfo.asp?siteID=10 145  - $50 from MS

http://www.pcconnection.com/scripts/productdetail.asp?product_id=213218 - http://www.pcconnection.com/scripts/productdetail.asp?produc t_id=213218  - $43 from PC Connection

Saw some other page on the MS site that had more detail info specific to the $50 developer edition, but couldn't find it again.

Bought mine from the MS link. Ordered on Sunday evening, got it on Tuesday afternoon. Included a CD for SP3a which fixes that little virus problem that knocked out most of the MSSQL servers earlier this year.

By layout and organization, MYSQL is an RDBMS, but not at the level one would want in a large scale enterprise system - yet. Last time I looked (last winter), by my notes it was missing views, stored procedures (?), userdefined functions, some types of joins, and full transactional support.

Most web apps, short of large scale enterprise apps, won't care about any of that except perhaps the stored procs and views. For the typical "flat" collection of tables found in may web apps, MYSQL is faster than MSSQL. MSSQL is more reliable (for db related faults), but includes more overhead to get that reliability. Bad sql and bad db handling in the code will hut performance much more than your choice of an RDBMS.

There's a myth that MYSQL is free. It is, but only for personal use or for non profit orgs. Any other use, including bundling it in an app you sell - e.g. desktop/lan/private web server/reseller web server - or offering it as part of a web hosting package requires payment of a $400 license fee.

I agree with the observation about PostGreSQL being better than MYSQL, but some of the commericial flavors of MYSQL are prety good also.

If I were to deploy a commerical app that expected under 5K db hits per day, I'd look at MSDE. Right now, it's not the snap to deploy that Access is, but MS has committed to move it in that direction. I'd expect to see Access go away in the near future.

One analogy I read about MSDE and it's throttled version of MSSQL was that it could run all week servicing a Human Resources DB for a company with 1000 people. But, when they all hit it just before 5 on friday to do their time sheets, it'll go down the tubes.

dpyers wrote: There's been some discussion going around that MS will be dropping Access within a couple of years in favor of a light version of MS SQL.

Not true.  Access is still incorporated into the office suite and will be in the next version.  Support for previous versions will continue well into the future.  I think support for Access 97 is even still offered, until next year.

Bluefrog wrote: [Access is a waste of time for anything except very small databases. Great for personal contacts and CD collections, and blah blah.

I'd like to clear this one up as well as its simply not true.  Access has been and continues to be an effective solution for corporations around the world.  It is the most widely used database in the world.

This is due to the fact that you have a preinstalled front-end on all machines that have office, as most corporations do.

Its quite simply the easiest and cheapest method of distributing a solution to multiple users that require a complex front-end. Its form and report designer is still among the best on the market. It replication capabilities can be effective, although a little buggy, and its integration with SQL Server for large data stored through Access Data Pages is becoming popular.

A properly designed Access solution can handle multiple users and reasonably large data-stores, well in excess of CD collections requirements.

Its not the answer for every situation, such as a back-end in a web application and may become obsolete in the future when web browsers can offer the same functionality as real-time forms, but thats a long time away.

Sorry, but I cringe when I see comments such as these.

Cheers,
Andrew

What we tend to think of as Access is actually two products. The first is the Access application components and structure of the Access Environment - e.g. forms, reports, deployment capability, design tools, etc. The second is the underlying DB engine which is currently Jet 4.0. Over the years, Access has changed the engine they ship with 2 or 3 times.

I was sloppy in saying that Acccess would go away. Couldn't see the forest for the trees. In this thread, was thinking of Access and Jet as the same thing. What I should have stated was that Jet 4.0 would be replaced by some MSDE flavor of MS SQL Server.

To do this MS needs to revamp the Access apllication to utilise more MSSQL features and come up with better deployment packaging for MSDE.

I also would not call Access (with Jet 4.0) a waste of time. It has its uses. Rapid development and deployment is one of it's best features and a millstone around the neck of the Jet engine.

As the entry level product for using DB's, a lot of very bad newbie code gets written because the product is forgiving. I've seen some impressive apps serving 20-50 people developed by people who know what they're doing.

On the web, Access/Jet is very suitable for the majority of personal (including personal forums) and small business sites. Although it doesn't scale well, it also doesn't break.

Bluefrog wrote: If you need reliability and data integrity for a relatively small application (thousands of records) that has a limited number of simultaneous users (10~30 max), then Access is fine.

Where did you get the 10~30 max from, on ms's website its defo in the hundreds.

Mart.

Tegwin wrote: Bluefrog wrote: .... MySQL is not an RDBMS. Just wanted to say here for the record that MYSQL IS an RDBMS.. The exceprt below is directly from the online manual at http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Introduction.html#Introduction - http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_In troduction.html#Introduction

MySQL does not support relationships, e.g. Foreign Keys. There are NO relations in MySQL. How can a Relational Database Management System lack the ability to store relationship?

Bunce wrote: Bluefrog wrote: [Access is a waste of time for anything except very small databases. Great for personal contacts and CD collections, and blah blah. I'd like to clear this one up as well as its simply not true.  Access has been and continues to be an effective solution for corporations around the world.  It is the most widely used database in the world. A properly designed Access solution can handle multiple users and reasonably large data-stores, well in excess of CD collections requirements. Its quite simply the easiest and cheapest method of distributing a solution to multiple users that require a complex front-end. Its form and report designer is still among the best on the market. It replication capabilities can be effective, although a little buggy, and its integration with SQL Server for large data stored through Access Data Pages is becoming popular. Sorry, but I cringe when I see comments such as these.

I probably should have been clearer. Access is not suitable for large databases with complex relationships. Once you have hundreds of thousands of records, and need to start joining that data to filter out things, you will run into troubles.  I figure any table with less than 10,000 records is pretty small.

The way Access loads information into memory is nowhere near as efficient as some of the other DB servers. But, it really depends upon what you want. Agreed - it is very cheap and effective for some uses.

And it's integration with SQL Server is fantastic. I use Access as a front end for a SQL Server database and it works very well for what I want it to do.

Mart wrote: Bluefrog wrote: If you need reliability and data integrity for a relatively small application (thousands of records) that has a limited number of simultaneous users (10~30 max), then Access is fine. Where did you get the 10~30 max from, on ms's website its defo in the hundreds. Mart.

Perhaps my tendency to exaggerate the situation... 50 max.

How many times have we read about Access/Jet crashing? And what is the usual cause? Too many simultaneous users trying to access the same information.

MS has a free stress testing tool that you can use on a web app to see just how far you can push it. If you'd like to, create an Access DB with several tables, relate them, do some cross joins and insert them to create test data, make a web page to pull out some data using at least two joins, then stress test it for different loads. You'll see my point.

Point: You don't want to push Access too hard if you are relying on that information and you can't afford for it to fail.

Inside of an Intranet, you have a very controlled environment, and this is ideal for Access because you KNOW what you will be dealing with. Take that to the Internet, and you've got a world of unknowns. Take a multi-threaded web spider/bot that isn't set to allow time inbetween requests and just goes nuts making 100 requests at a time. That can be enough to bring a more complex Access based web application down.

My 10~30 should be taken as a (close to) worst case scenario.