Moving MS Access 365 backends online

[Mindbender]

I have several ms access 365 databases that have backends residing on a server but the performance has taken a serious hit since most of the office started working from home and the network is slowing down.  I am looking for ways to move the database backends online or any other options I may have to not have to rely on our taxed network and increase performance for the end users.

Thanks in advance for your input

B

[#2]

@Mindbender How are your users actually connecting to these backend accdbs?

You might get some insight from this old, but still valid and relevant discussion.

You could investigate setting up Remote Desktop Services  to support remote users. Many developers recommend this approach, although I don't personally have relevant experience.

You could also consider migrating the Access accdbs to Microsoft's Azure SQL. 

This might require some modifications of your Access Front Ends, but would be, IMO, the long-term best solution. 

[#3]

@George Hepworth 

Thank you for the reply. Currently I have a shared folder on a server with permissions set for the users. They then map a drive to the folder and copy the front end to their desktop.

I will take a look at the threads you suggested. 

Thank you

[#4 · Accepted solution]

@Mindbender The quick and working solution is Remote Desktop services...you setup a server (the more powerfull the better) , optionally you setup the BE on a folder on the server for maximum performance (network BE is great but you get performance hit if you have to pull/push data via network) so your BE should be placed on something like "C:\Dbs" (this mean that you have to setup the same server for RDP and Access BE) and you buy licences for the end users.

Only the FE would feel "slow" as the performance will be just like being in the office.

The long term is renting a VPS and moving the entire BE to the cloud (this could be everything after all you are not dealing with Access anymore, so it could MSSQL,MySQL,Oracle, PostGre...etc) which has a good side and a bad side

The bad side is that depending on the complexity of your application it could yield quite some work as Database Engine <> Access Database...different philosophy ..different handling...unless your data are way too small like in the hundreds and you can get away with the usual Linked table philosophy (my recommendation is always to work with direction via Passthrough Queries or via ADO/DAO code)

The good side is that if you invest the time (and because time = money) you will enjoy global access possibly with licence costs (MySQL,PostGre are free and VPS can be rent for low prices starting from a few dollars/mo) and depending on the planning greater performance.. especially if you treat the new BE as a SQL engine BE not a file placeholder alternative since the processing philosophy is different and comes with goodies like scaling,optimizations etc. (of course there would be some caveats...e.g. you just can't browse million of records like you did in Access...you need to work on filtering)

If you are in a hurry you can't go wrong with RDP but if you are looking at the future Cloud SQL is a one way street for now

[#5]

Thank you very much for the insight. I have lots of homework to do