Microsoft Access 2007 is a very extensive and versatile program; one of its most useful features being its ability to integrate with the Internet. In this blog I will talk about a few important uses of Access integration, and also a few warnings.
From my research, I found the best use of Access on the Web is for sites that contain data which changes often. The most formidable that comes to mind is an online store with an ever changing product catalog, such as Amazon.com. The inventory on such a site is constantly changing, constantly being added to, subtracted from, or modified. Imagine the tedious work that would be involved in editing such a site through basic HTML (or XHTML). It would be ridiculous. If such a site is driven by a database, making these edits would be much simpler. This integration is made possible through a data access page, which is a webpage that is connected directly to the data in your database. Any changes made in that database will be integrated into your online store via this data access page.
Another big part of online stores, besides the online inventory, is the shopping cart. Access comes in handy when you need to perform calculations or apply some sort of algorithm to the data that affects the way it is presented on your site, which a shopping cart is a prime example of. A database is very useful for the ever-changing environment that an online store calls for. It is easy to see why such sites as Amazon.com or Ebay.com would be reliant on database/Internet integration.
During my research, I also found several warnings concerning the use of database driven websites. While this method is excellent for online inventory and sales, it should not be used for the entire format of your site. Formatting and styling of page layouts is much more difficult on text elements derived from a database. Also, articles should not be stored in a database because all of the formatting necessary for such file types is much more difficult through a database. Large Access databases consume much more server resources than most other file formats. Database connections are also more expensive in terms of time and processing power, and many search engines may not be able to "see" your pages if they are completely database driven.
In conclusion, Access integration with the Internet can be very useful and profitable, but must be used wisely. Use it for what is necessary to ensure the quality of design that you require, but use standard web design for everything else. This will help your website to continue to run proficiently, even if it contains large database files.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Close but not quite. You would be advised not to use Access on a website beyond a personal, low-traffic site. Access is just not a powerful or fast enough or secure enough database to be used in such an environment. Given that, you COULD use Access on your website if you had to.
Amazon and ebay certainly use databases but they are primarily of the more powerful SQL Server or Oracle varieties most likely.
Many sites use databases for all their pages now that you can store content in the database fields itself and formatting rules in a style sheet (css) on the server.
Post a Comment