Posted by ManChild on 09/07/05 03:18

weissborn@charter.net wrote:
> I have an application I have written in MS Access 2002. It is a very
> basic inventory system for keeping track of information about our
> Unix(solaris to be specific) servers. Other admins may want to use it
> shortly and running MS Access over the WAN is no picnic. It was
> suggested that I port to php and MySql. Having no experience with
> either, I'm wondering if this is a viable solution.
>
> The database if very "plain vanilla", i.e., bascially a flat file
> although a few tables with foreign keys relating to the main table. No
> fancy reporting just a few basic queries such as "show all systems
> marked as servers running version X of software Y" type of thing. Some
> of the forms have some VBA code behind them that do simple things like
> change the color of the text to make it stand-out. This data/web-page
> would only be used internally.
>
>>From what I've read so far, php looks like it may be a good way to go
> but I'm not sure. What say you all?
>
> Any suggestions, comments, concerns would be most welcome as well as
> pointers to sites that might be doing something similar.
>
> Bill W.
>

It really depends on the host server -- if you already run MySQL then it
might be worth the effort however it'd probably be easier to hook PHP up
to access (I've done it before) and code a little front end if you are
stuck on *nix -- if you are on Windows consider upping the database into
the MSDE or SQL Server and churning out some classic ASP-- the code
fragments in the VBA app will probably be cut and pasteable in many cases.

I'm torn - but if its a low volumn app a complete re-write will be a
headache that is hardly worth it.

James

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