Creating a Cloud Based Program (1 Viewer)

Thales750

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I would like to start a definitive conversation about the best way to take years of Access Development and turn it into cloud based systems.

I love Access, and over the years I have neglected my career by not learning other languages and other methods. So now I'm looking a lot like a relic, stuck in a past world.

So please, put in your two cents here. I want to know what y'all
think.
 

The_Doc_Man

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Cloud-based systems are going to be uneven with respect to Access. The Windows File Sharing protocols, which use Server Message Block (SMB) protocols, work more or less OK over a cloud for burst-oriented activities like copying a single file or two. This works OK particularly since if the file transfer fails you can repeat it and delete the poorly copied file.

However, Access will have a LOT of file activity and the SMB protocol absolutely DOES NOT LIKE interrupted networks. They lose the thread of what they are doing and SMB does NOT allow thread rejoins. This means that if a file update was underway, your cloud-based file is now corrupt.
 

Thales750

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Pardon Doc,
I am not actually asking if there is a way to make Access cloud friendly. I;m saying I want to start from scratch.

I wan't to build systems that have the same features.

They need to be built Built in something completely different than Access, have all the goodies from Access like subforms and mimic VBA code, and are able to be used in cross platforms on mobile devices.
 

The_Doc_Man

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Oh, must have missed that intention.

The only things that come to mind that give you the Access-like experience are Access itself, perhaps presented via Terminal Services, or web-based.

When dealing with web stuff, you are quite likely to be able to find various tool sets that will talk to back-ends. But as to whether they will give you the robustness of controls and tools such as Access uses, I don't personally know of any.

Web-based methods will work because, unlike Access connections, which are very highly connection-oriented, the web methods are, by the nature of the web, connectionless (User Datagram Protocol or UDP-based). They deal with implied sessions maintained by cookies, but do not depend on session sequence numbers like the entire TCP protocol set (which includes SMB). However, that means you need an active back-end machine as your DB host because a shared-file system will not work on any passive setup, due to that inherent lack of connections.

I'm sure some of the other members might have suggestions, but the one system with which I was most familiar is no longer in business and would have shown its age in any case.
 

CJ_London

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So now I'm looking a lot like a relic, stuck in a past world.
The world is still current and will be for many years to come
have all the goodies from Access like subforms and mimic VBA code, and are able to be used in cross platforms on mobile devices.
There is not such app around.

You need to be clear about what you mean by 'cloud based' - what do you feel you are missing out on?

I have access apps I can run from my phone, apple device, whatever - I use jump desktop. I have clients who use citrix or terminal server, they can also connect to their server from any device from anywhere. You have things like Power BI you can use but they all have their limitations.

the nearest mimic to VBA is probably VB, followed by C#, neither are 'cloud based'. For that you need to used HTML making use of snippets from Java, python and the like. There are apps out there that use WYSIWYG form designers to create the required code- visual studio for example - but you will find the development time is significantly longer, they don't have constructs like subforms and the basis of constructing code is significantly different.

Or you can use something like Wordpress which will do the heavy lifting for you, but is relatively limited in scope. Oh -and don't forget there are 5 main browsers out there, all slightly different so make sure you keep to lowest common denominator or have exception handling.

There is a place for both - client based systems such as Access are likely to be around for many years simply because they are more powerful than a browser based alternative.
 

sonic8

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Web-based methods will work because, unlike Access connections, which are very highly connection-oriented, the web methods are, by the nature of the web, connectionless (User Datagram Protocol or UDP-based). They deal with implied sessions maintained by cookies, but do not depend on session sequence numbers like the entire TCP protocol set (which includes SMB). However, that means you need an active back-end machine as your DB host because a shared-file system will not work on any passive setup, due to that inherent lack of connections.
I can't refrain from commenting on this...

UDP is still relevant for specific use cases, but the majority of web communication nowadays is via TCP/IP.

Except for that rather small UDP-part, the web is not at all connectionless. I guess, you meant to refer to the HTTP protocol being stateless.

SMB is an application layer protocol, while TCP is a transport layer protocol. SMB requires a connection based transport layer protocol, but it is certainly not part of that protocol family.

I agree on the need for an active back-end machine, but it is not due to the lack of connections but (mainly) due to their unreliability and the resource-burden of managing application level connections (=State!).
 

The_Doc_Man

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Been too long since I studied the nomenclature, sonic8. I won't argue the corrections. However, I will clarify that UDP doesn't involve persistent sessions involving the strict sequence numbering and two-way negotiated sockets in the same way that TCP requires. And since SMB is a layer riding on TCP, it DOES require such sockets and robust session overhead. Perhaps you would like that better?
 

sonic8

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However, I will clarify that UDP doesn't involve persistent sessions involving the strict sequence numbering and two-way negotiated sockets in the same way that TCP requires. And since SMB is a layer riding on TCP, it DOES require such sockets and robust session overhead. Perhaps you would like that better?
Spot on. - I'm perfectly fine with this! :)
 

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