Web Database Consulting: Migration Business Drivers Smart Client Solutions

Convert Excel to Access
Convert Access to SQL Server
Distributed Databases

Application Migration Business Drivers
10 Most Common Reasons to Migrate

Contact PCA:

Click here to request
more information.

or call:
(617) 527-4722 x126
Toll Free:
(877) 843-3405 x126

or write to: info@pcapps.com

Below are the 10 most common reasons why companies decide to migrate an existing business application to more robust, commercial-grade platform. Migrating your system may require swapping out your back-end datastore with SQL Server and/or replacing your front-end application interface with .Net The right approach depends upon the issues you are experiencing, and your go-forward business needs. PCA will help you determine the most appropriate and economical solution to your needs.

		Poor Data Integrity Proper business data integrity insures that all your business data follow consistent and valid data formats -- so that your application functions and calculations are accurate and reliable, and Reports properly interpret and render your business data. Enforcing data integrity requires programming data validation rules into your system. MS Excel provides little to no means to establish or validate data integrity. MS Access provides very limited means to establish and insure data integrity. Click Here to learn more about SQL Server/Smart Client data integity.
		Poor Security MS Excel and MS Access can only be protected by 2 things: a Password, and the operating system itself e.g. security attributes set by the network administrator at the network hard drive and directory levels. Neither Excel or Access provide secure mechanisms to establish, manage and validate Role-based application security and true End User authentication. Click Here to learn more about SQL Server/Smart Client application security.
		Poor Application Performance Poor application performance is most often due to poor database schema design (this is true for any database application, including MS Access and MS SQL Server). MS Access can only support a small number of Users before performance becomes an issue, and there are many other issues that can negatively impact MS Access application performance. Click Here to learn more about common issues that impair MS Access application performance.
		Application is Unreliable Does your application stay running like a work horse 24x7? Or, does it crash frequently causing lost productivity and lost/corrupt data? The "reliability" of an MS Access application is constrained primarily by the quality of application design (poor application design and development decisions), and forthermore by the limitations of the MS Access platform itself. Click Here to learn more about common issues that impact MS Access application reliability.
		Number and Location of End Users MS Excel and MS Access applications are not designed (or well-suited) for multi-user deployment or commercial/production use. The flexibility that both of these tools provide for easily modeling business requirements become unmanageable, once the tool is made available to more and more end users. A general rule of thumb: if more than 5 End Users rely on the application, it's time to transition your desktop tool to a database application. Click Here to learn more about MS Access End User limitations.
		Business Process Workflow Complexity The MS Access platform may be well-suited to supporting your application needs, provided that the workflow required to support your business process is fairly simple i.e. linear, and the information model is straightforward i.e. many interdependent relationships among discrete pieces of information is not required to support your business process. Complex business processes and associated workflows is the primary reason why companies look to develop custom applications from scratch vs. using the tools available in MS Excel or MS Access. MS Access provides a number of efficient ways to model the application interface around complex business processes and workflows, and is usually sufficient for most business needs.
		Data Model Complexity Do you have a simple application with 6 or so tables, with limited need for sub-tables and complex relationships among various data fields? If so, MS Access may be perfectly suitable to your business application neeeds. If your application requires more complex data modeling to support more robust capabilities e.g. nested queries, then SQL Server may be necessary.
		Database Size MS Access is the logical choice, when you run out of Columns or Rows in MS Excel, and you need repeatable database-like functionality. While Microsoft advertises that MS Access can handle up to a 2 GB datastore, in reality you will notice appreciable degradation in applicaiton performance and stability over 1 GB. Click Here to learn more about MS Access datastore limitations.
		Industry Compliance HIPAA and Section 508 require very specfic attention to application design and development to insure regulatory and business compliance. MS Access is HIPAA non-compliant, due primarily to poor application and data security. You will need to custom-design a SQL Server based application to meet minimal HIPAA requirements.
		Legacy System - I/T Hostage Situation We see this situation quite often -- and it has far less to do with old technology and far more to do with I/T professionals who are entrenched in olds ways of doing business, protecting their jobs, out of touch with business operational needs, and generally unresponsive to changing/evolving business needs. PCA has extensive experience entering sometimes hostile situations, co-opting the necessary resources to get the system back on track, and mitigating business risk until a new system is designed, developed and securely in place.