[plug] porting an application

[Ryan]

> I need to know if anyone knows or have done the following:
> We have a MS Access database program that we use for a lot 
> of our admin work, we would like to have it ported to html 
> or whatever as to allow us access to it via a web browser 
> over the Internet.  I would like to have some input as to 
> what is needed.  I'm being told that I may have to have a 
> MS 2000 server in order to do this.

Yes, MS 2000 server with IIS will let you do it, Professional will do it
also, but has a 10 concurrent user connection limit on the IIS service.
But why? :)

An alternative that I have done is to migrate the database to a Linux
based one, in my case PostgreSQL (using PgAdmin to do the migration).
Once it is converted and all coded up (I used Perl) you can administer
it via the web interface so there is no need for MS Access anymore -
YAY!

There are several web based front-end to Postgres which will allow MS
Access like manipulation of the data.  If you want a more customised
solution then get coding.

There are also ODBC bridge drivers available for a cost that allows a
Linux server to connect to an Access database running on a Windows
machine, allowing people to still use it in MS Access, I have read you
can also store the Access file directly on a Linux file share and
operate on it directly from the Linux box and over the share from
Windows.  

Either of these solutions then introduce the issue of concurrency, which
requires a database server to deal with (MS Access is by no stretch of
the imagination anything close to a database server), so we come back to
Postgres - get my drift? :)

HTH

Ryan