Oracle-ASP-Access

Next week at work a decision will be taken to go for either an oracle or ms sql server database as a long term corporate decision. Unfortunately, for me I've got to take the place of my boss representing one section of the organisation.

I'm a bit worried that if we choose oracle it will make it impossible to do some things I know possible in SQL Server, I also know that if I contact an Oracle sales rep or consultant they are likely to say yes, even if Oracle is not suitable. If anyone could reply to any of the questions below I know I would be a lot happier going into this meeting and being more informed.

Some background on the organisation - we are made up of eight regional offices, with approximately 10-15 staff in each and a central division with about 250 staff. There is current a 64k line connecting the regions to the center but this is about to be upgraded. The Network backbone is Novell 4 and pcs run mainly windows 95. We know we will have to get NT Server 4 in to drive MS internet information server in order to take advantage of ASP and to run a crystal reports server. One of our main applications is a timekeeping system called Time Sheet Pro, which currently links to nine different Access databases, we would like to run this of a central database using it's internet browser interface.

The questions are are
Can Oracle serve as a backend database to MS Internet Infomation Server and run ASP Queries. Are there any restrictions using Oracle in this way compared to SQL Server.

We've started using Visual Basic more and more to build in-house applications, I know VB works very well with Access and SQL Server, will it work with Oracle as well.

One advantage of using Microsoft products is that they can be developed locally in Access and then ported (relatively easily I am told) to SQL Server. You can also setup an Access link to MS Personal Web Server to develop ASP-based intranet pages and then port them to the main server. Is there any way to set up Oracle to work in a similar manner.

How well does Oracle's ODBC link work with Seagate Crystal Reports and/or Crystal Info, for intranet based reports

Licenses

I can't get any sense out of Microsoft on this one at all!

We want to setup an application using our intranet to allow approximately 130 staff to access the same database to keep a log of activities. I know that a maximum of 50 are ever likely to be accessing the database at the same time. Do we need to buy

130 licenses
50 licenses
or just 1 license

I think it's 50, but I'm not sure about this one at all.

When it comes to a head-to-head database comparison I know that Oracle is the better product, what isn't clear is how well Oracle integrates with other applications, in particular intranets. Also, I'm likely to be working with whatever server product we get and while I don't mind learning more SQL than I currently know, I want to use applications like Drumbeat and Interdev to make my job easier. Is Oracle too hard a product for non-Oracle programmers to get to grips with.

Any response to the above really would be appreciated, even if it's just a yes/no

Many thanks

Brian
briansheehan_at_hotmail.com Received on Fri Apr 30 1999 - 16:25:21 CDT