Databases Compared
Windows Database Packages
Microsoft produces 3 databases, Access, SQL Server and FoxPro. I have experience of each of these databases, each having its own specific strengths and target audience.
Access is primarily aimed at the desktop, power user. It is designed for ease of use and not specifically as a programming development environment, although many complex business applications have been created using Access. Access databases are not well suited to high number of concurrent users, a maximum of 10-20 users is often quoted. FoxPro is primarily a developers tool used for small to medium business applications. Visual FoxPro can handle very large volumes of data efficiently but lacks some of the features found in top end databases such as SQL Server and Oracle. Microsoft FoxPro applications can be developed quicker than Access as it is a pure developer tool, but suffers from increased complexity and less widely used. With Foxpro the developer benefits from powerful object orientated classes component designer and a data centric language with built in database commands. These both considerably reduces amount programming compared to non object orientated Visual Basic used in Access. Reasons to choose Foxpro. SQL Server as its name suggests is purely a server database providing one half in a Client-Server application. Front end clients can be written using Access SQL Projects or ASP.Net web applications. SQL Server applications provide a higher level of reliability and are better suited to very high volumes of transactions. Deployment costs are higher than Access or Foxpro. There are many rivals to SQL Server in end-end corporate database market most notably Oracle. Reasons to choose SQL Server. |
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Paul Stanley Software
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Foxpro System Capacities
Table Size: 2GB
Fields per Table: 255
Max Record Size: 64,000 bytes
Max Records per Table: 1,000,000,000
SQL Server Capacities
Database Size: 1,000,000 TB (1 TB = 1,024 GB)
Table Size: 32 TB
Unlimited rows per table
SQL, Structured Query Language, specifies how data is read and written from a database. FoxPro, Access and SQL Server all use SQL statements, though there are some (annoying) differences between the way it is implemented.
How does Visual FoxPro position in relation to Microsoft Access?
Microsoft Access, the database in Microsoft Office, is the most broadly used and easiest-to-learn database tool that Microsoft offers. If you are new to databases, or if you want an interactive product with plenty of convenience, then choose Microsoft Access.
Visual FoxPro is a powerful rapid application development (RAD) tool for creating relational database applications. If you are a database developer who builds applications for a living and you want ultimate speed and power, then choose Visual FoxPro.
Other Databases
Many of the high end packages such as Oracle, Sybase, Informix also run on Unix as well as Windows whereas Microsoft databases are all Windows specific. For smaller Unix databases the shareware MySQL is very popular.
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