DBs islolated in the middle of the ocean

Hi
I'm about to begin development on an application that manages information on 15 ships. The ships are standardized on Win NT 4.0, no new hardware is permissable, the DB can't run as a server and no technical staff will ever be available to administer it.
Strange requirements, but that's what they are. Does this force me into somthing like Access and Jet? The ship data (about 5000 records per month) must replicate over satellite with a central office DB--which can run SQL Server. Any suggestions on how
to design this?
Thanks
Gavin
Access might be the best choice, because if something goes wrong you can
just get a new database file over there that you create from the data at the
central office. I assume that the people on board of the ship are computer
literate enough to copy a file in the right location, so they can fix the
problem themselves. If the DB can't run as a service, that pretty much rules
out SQL Server and most other DBMS's. 5000 rows per month is within the
limits of Access. I assume bandwith is at a premium, so exchanging zipped
text files might be a better option than using replication for example. Just
look at technology that was around 5-8 years ago and use that :-)
Jacco Schalkwijk
SQL Server MVP
"Gavin" <gavin@.nospam.nospam> wrote in message
news:9F43B591-A45A-4CEA-8CB1-A998FDEB918F@.microsoft.com...
> Hi
> I'm about to begin development on an application that manages information
on 15 ships. The ships are standardized on Win NT 4.0, no new hardware is
permissable, the DB can't run as a server and no technical staff will ever
be available to administer it. Strange requirements, but that's what they
are. Does this force me into somthing like Access and Jet? The ship data
(about 5000 records per month) must replicate over satellite with a central
office DB--which can run SQL Server. Any suggestions on how to design this?
> Thanks
> Gavin
>
|||What does "can't run as a server" mean?
And what's going to happen if they get a disc failure or other hardware
issue? (which, I assume, will be much more likely at sea than in a nice
climate controlled hosting area, in which hardware failures occur all the
time!)
"Gavin" <gavin@.nospam.nospam> wrote in message
news:9F43B591-A45A-4CEA-8CB1-A998FDEB918F@.microsoft.com...
> Hi
> I'm about to begin development on an application that manages information
on 15 ships. The ships are standardized on Win NT 4.0, no new hardware is
permissable, the DB can't run as a server and no technical staff will ever
be available to administer it. Strange requirements, but that's what they
are. Does this force me into somthing like Access and Jet? The ship data
(about 5000 records per month) must replicate over satellite with a central
office DB--which can run SQL Server. Any suggestions on how to design this?
> Thanks
> Gavin
>
|||Use sql desktop edition - (MSDE) - it's free and is essentially sql server with limits - it will run on any pc - the pc doesn't have to be a server - do a backup each evening - compress the backup.
Email the backup via satellite to head office and restore to main server - all of this can be automated...
MSDE will be much more robust and reliable than access - access can break your heart sometimes...
Jim.