Accessing an Access database in ASP.Net 2.0

[John]

I have an ASP.NET 2.0 application developed in VB.net, that accesses an
Microsoft Access
database. When the database is on the same IIS server all works just
fine. BUT when it tried to access the same database on a different
server I get a permission error. I've created a shared drive on the
other server and give it permission with all rights, as well as the
Access database. BUT no matter how I set up the connection string in my
app, I can't connect to the database.

Any help??

Thanks,

John

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

Which account did you grant permissions to the db? Also, what server OS are
you running?

Something else to keep in mind, you may run into a locking issue if the
other server uses the database as well. Access doesn't perform well when
multiple connections are open to it, especially if those are
update/delete/insert operations.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> Access doesn't perform well when multiple connections are open to it,
!> especially if those are update/delete/insert operations.

I have had Access databases perform well with 50-60 concurrent connections.
That is enough performance to permit quite busy websites.

It does take paying close attention to closing connections in a timely fashion, though.

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

Hi Juan,
Are most of those connections performing selects or doing updates? I
haven't used Access for a web db since the 2002 version but in the classic
ASP days it there was a lot of discussion regarding how Access tended to
break down rapidly whith numerous non-select connections. I don't remember
the specifics, but I believe the selects had better management with
connection pooling and maintained decent performance.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

Hi, Mark.

This was a few years ago and that web is not online any more.
IIRC, the ratio was about 3 selects to 1 update.

The record for max concurrent connections was a bit over 60.

re:
!> I don't remember the specifics, but I believe the selects had better
!> management with connection pooling and maintained decent performance.

You remember correctly.

Access choked (don't know if it still does) with over 40 or so concurrent updates,
unless close attention was placed on closing connections ASAP...and having
only one concurrent web user, which restricts its use to anonymous users
( otherwise, continuously updating the lock files produces severe file contention ).

Still, it offers quite acceptable performance for anonymous sites.
Very few websites need more than 10 concurrent page/data hits.

That scales into upwards of 50,000 page/database hits daily...which is plenty for most sites.

An even sturdier database platform, unfortunately being phased away, is FoxPro.

I did a test with it and found that FoxPro withstood upwards
of 150 concurrent connections without melting down.

The whole point is moot now, though, with SQL Server Express 2005.
It's almost as sturdy as SQL Server itself, and it's free!

 

[Aidy]

When using anonymous authentication the windows user your ASP pages use is a
local one to the IIS server and does not have permission to access shares on
other machines. What you have to do is create a new user, with the relevant
permissions, and use that as your anonymous authentication user.