I have 10 people on a local area network, using Access 2010 in a split configuration with Access 2010 as the FE and Access 2010 as the BE. There is no reason to believe I will have BE corruption issues, except for one thing. One of the computers on the network needs to be wireless. I know that running Access on a wireless network is a bad idea. I have been told that one possible solution is to let the wireless laptop use a VPN as a means of communicating with the FE.

Is this really sufficient for solving my problem? I would guess so but before I commit a client to one solution or another I would like to know for sure.

If really needed, the client will make SQL Server the BE but that would be a lot of expense. SQL Express won't do. Access seems adequate in all respects, except for the problem mentioned above.

So, again, is there any reason to believe that something more than than running the FE via a VPN is needed to avoid corruption issues on the back-end?

All wired machines will have UPS's.

As far as I'm aware, using VPN does not make wireless any "safer" to use with Access databases.

Hi Doug. Thanks for responding

I think the problem is that I did not explain myself well. Let me re-state.

I have a hard wired machine that is part of a local area network. This machine is running the front-end part of an Access applicaiton. The back-end is on a dedicated file server. I have another machine that is a laptop and needs to be un-tethered so that the operator can take it from place to place to scan things. It too needs to be able to use the Access applcation.

Tying-in the machine in a wireless configuration is not an option because doing so creates a high potential for corrupting the back-end if the wireless network burps. A workaround that has been suggested is to instead connect the wireless machine to the wired machine via a VPN. This way, it is intimated, if there is a problem with the wireless machine the BE is not likely to be affected because the wireless machine it is not really connected to the BE - it is simply controllig the FE on the machine that is hard-wired.

Does that help?

Okay, so you're talking about RDPing to the desktop from the laptop using VPN? That should be fine. If you can RDP to the desktop without VPN, that should work as well.

You probably mean VNC and not VPN...

VPN stands for "virtual private network" and is a tool that connects you to a distant network via an encrypted VPN-Tunnel - so if you are away from the office, you can securely connect via a VPN-tunnel over the internet and work as if you were on site.

This will not solve your problem.

VNC stands for "virtual network computing" - this lets you control another computer over the network by transmitting the contents of the screen to your machine and mouse/keyboard input back to the remote machine.

This should solve your problem, but you will need an extra computer to act as host for VNC.


P.S.: RDP (=remote desktop protocol) is a similiar technology used by Microsoft, it even allows users to run multiple remote sessions on a so-called terminal-server.

Marsupilami72

Thank you for pointing out the difference between VPN and VNC. When you add other acronymns lik "RDP" it can get a little confusing, but I think I've got them straight.

So, back to the original question. I have a laptop that needs to be wireless. Wireless is dangerous for Access. But a suggested work around is to continue to use the wirless laptop but have it use Remote Desktop to communicate with a machine that is hard-wired and actually running the Access application. Under this configuration, it is suggested, the chances for corruption issues are lessened substantially and it should be a safe environment for gathering data into an Access applicaiton.

Do you and or others concur?

This is correct, VNC and RDP have been designed specifically to work even on very poor connections. And even if there is data loss, this will not affect the access frontend, as it is not using the wireless connection.

A few years ago i set up a terminal server for a customer, who only had a DSL "light" connection with 384/64kBit/s available at his office (something, he should have checked in advance ), and it works just fine up to this day.

We use a wireless connection in our conference rooms. When I have meetings where I need to demo or work with apps, we use the wireless connection. I've had no problems with corruption due to that.

So before you jump through hoops here, I would see how it works out. Make sure the back end is backed up at least daily, may even more often. But unless they are working on the wireless connection frequently during the day, it may not be an issue.

Scott has some perfectly valid points. I don't think we can label wireless as bad for Access. Instead, perhaps you need to evaluate the reliability of the wireless that user is on. After all, things other than a wireless interruption can happen - battery running out, kick the plug, etc. Do you normally experience dropouts?

One other thought if it's running in a bad wireless environment is to collect the data locally - the data that is to be populated to the BE, and then do an update with all of it so the actual critical live time is brief. Another approach is to populate the data to another BE database to avoid corruption the real BE, user would review it and command the BE to read from the temporary BE db.