Desktop application connection to an online database

2018-01-21

Question

_{Sunday, January 21, 2018 12:00 AM}

Hi gurus in the house, I have developed an Inventory Management System in VB.NET and it currently uses MS ACCESS as a back end. But my aim now is to access all data from an online database saved some where on a server with the aid of internet connectivity.

A brief description of how i want this application to work

After the installation, the user have to set up the application, and one of the set up is to choose whether to use, 1. the standalone version or the web version. Then if the user chooses the web setup a database should be created online for easy access from many PCs that the software might be installed**.**

Major reason for implementing this feature is to make it easy for the sales persons to access and update the database with easy and keep track of the stock very well since the desktop application will be installed on more than 1 PCs.

Here is the images of the Software

So i don't actually know the way forward here, any contribution is going be appreciated very well. Am really new to desktop development and it's deployment.

Thanks very well for your time. Good Luck!!!

All replies (6)

_{Sunday, January 21, 2018 12:51 AM ✅Answered}

Hello Pat,

Your best bet is to find a company that will host your ms-access database. They would provide you with a connection string which in turn you would use in your application.

With that said, you would be better off using a web host with SQL-Server database which will handle everything much better than ms-access can. There are tools out there to assist with moving data from ms-access to SQL-Server and with that would recommend looking a SQL-Server Management Studio (SSMS). Not trying to push you in this direction but instead indicating it's a better choice overall.

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help, this will help others who are looking for solutions to the same or similar problem. Contact via my Twitter (Karen Payne) or Facebook (Karen Payne) via my MSDN profile but will not answer coding question on either.
VB Forums - moderator

_{Sunday, January 21, 2018 1:15 AM ✅Answered}

The customer does not require SSMS, that is a tool to assist with working with your database as a developer.

What the client needs? Nothing as when you connect to SQL-Server online all that is needed is only by the host you select. I can't recommend a host as for me I use Azure and that is not cheap so best to Google say GoDaddy (see this page for sql-server)

_{Sunday, January 21, 2018 1:44 AM ✅Answered}

Your connection string is dependent on the host but it would resemble the "Connect via an IP address" on this page.

In regards to will your SQL statements work? If you don't use ms-access specific functions in the statements then yes all works the same and this is thinking you are accessing data via OleDb data provider while if you used Visual Studio Table Adapters then it will be difficult to change but not impossible.

The following code sample shows a comparison of reading data, one class does ms-access while the other SQL-Server. The big differences are the data provider while the methods used are the exact same. The code sample is for local operations yet with a web host all that really changes is the connection string.

I have tons of code samples working with SQL-Server but they are in C# so that's not going to help.

Any ways that is a start.

_{Sunday, January 21, 2018 12:59 AM}

Thanks so much for your irresistible response. When i want to deploy the desktop application, will i have to install SQL Management Studio on the client PCs before it will work? or do i have to deploy it with the SQL Management Studio as part of the setup file (.exe file)?

_{Sunday, January 21, 2018 1:30 AM}

I still have more clarifications, if i should switch to SQL SERVER, will my queries i used with MS ACCESS still work, and please can you show me how my connection string will look like if i should switch to SQL SERVER. Sincerely speaking you have saved me hours and days of research. Thanks once again!!! (Pat)

_{Sunday, January 21, 2018 7:39 AM}

Thanks still. You are good

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Desktop application connection to an online database

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