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Microsoft Access on a server

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by stealthwifi

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Hello-
I am currently the network admin for a small company with about 10 physical users and 4 VPN remote users. My company recently purchased a custom written database for handeling insurance information and reports for a partner company, I don't know much about Access but I have been put in charge of making sure the 10 users can run the databse for entering info and 2 of the remote VPN users (from the partner company) need acces to view the data, one of the problums that this being a custom databse we can not allow the partner company to be able to obtain any source code or info that will allow them to reproduce this databse. I would like to run the databse on Windows server 2003 and just set up permisions to allow user to view and edit what they need to, any sugestions on going about this?
Thank You all very much!

5 replies

by bschaettle

Read up on setting up security within Access. It's pretty ugly, but you can control the access to every table, query, form and report for every user or group of users. Sounds to me like you have three user groups: those that can only view, those that can enter data, and the owner/admninistrator (yourself). The downside is that the security may not be separate from the customized database, which will mean that you may need to re-do all these security-related changes any time there's an upgrade from the vendor. I'd talk to the database vendor before making any changes.

by benstaylor

Depending on the version of Access that was used to develop the database, and the method chosen by the developer, the database will use Jet (the native Access database engine) or some version of SQL Server.

If SQL Server then you have more capability for granting or denying access to the database.

Either way, you are at the cusp of the capability for concurrent users of an Access application (depending on how it was written). Access, by default, does it's own record locking, etc. which degrades as more users are added. Connecting with SQL Server helps extend that number of concurrent depending on what method the data is presented to the user.

Ultimately, if your application does not already have roles defined in it providing security, you are going to have to modify the application to restirct access, or write a different applicaiton for your non-employee users in order to assure they don't have access to restricted data.

Cheers,

Ben

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