The EDB Postgres Advanced Server is an advanced deployment of the PostgreSQL relational database with greater features and Oracle compatibility, from EnterpriseDB headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts.
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Microsoft Access
Score 7.6 out of 10
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Microsoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.
Very well suited to applications mixing relational with NoSQL and/or complex data types, such as network analysis, JSON, key-value-pair, etc. Excellent if you have multiple programming languages in use (Python, Perl, R, etc.) because PPAS supports so many languages natively. Not well suited if you need encryption at rest, compressed data or very large database-tier backups. [Large backups should be done at the storage tier if possible.]
Having worked at startups, I can say Microsoft Access is most suited for their needs. Some of the reasons for that can be the ease and ability to create tables, design an entity-relationship diagram, define the relationship between different tables, feeding data into the tables, and retrieving data. All of this can be curated very easily into a process for small to medium-size enterprises. But a serious limitation can be observed where Access does not provide better features for large-scale companies. Another limitation is for companies where Mac is used as work computers.
PPAS Oracle compatibility, especially the PL/SQL syntax, has made migrating database-tier code very simple. Most Oracle packages do not need to be changed at all and those that do are generally for simple reasons like a reserved word in PPAS that is allowed in Oracle.
PPAS xDB, the multi-master replication tool, is simple and - most important - does not break with network or other interruptions. We have been able to configure and forget, which our customers could never do with other multi-master tools.
Most people had no idea that PPAS and PostgreSQL have full CRUD support for JSON. They think you need a specialized product and/or that JSON is read-only. Every organization that I have worked with is evaluating adding JSON to their relational model.
One good aspect of Microsoft Access is how the software can be customized for different applications. This is very useful because we are able to use this software for multiple applications, which makes it cost-friendly.
Another strong point of Microsoft Access is the skill required to customize, the amount of programming required is less than most other database programs. This is good for a beginner looking to get into database management.
Microsoft Access is one of the more cost-friendly database applications, and most of the time it comes with Microsoft Office. Other database programs can be expensive and not as easy to use.
Documentation is excellent but spread out across many resources and can take a while to wade through—would benefit from having more intro level, getting started guides for various languages.
Ruby support is excellent but more Ruby examples and beginner-level documentation would be nice.
It is sometimes hard to find a community of users on StackOverflow so a larger community, and a dedicated forum with active members to answer questions and work through issues would be nice.
I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
We chose Postgres Plus Advanced Server because we had the finances to do so and needed the robust featureset, along with the power to optimize our performance and integrate with the development tools of our choosing. We audited a number of options, exploring potential solutions at various levels of robustness and decided that this was our best option moving forward.
Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
Postgres Plus Advanced Server is quite complex and may take longer to implement certain things than simply using PostgreSQL depending on developer familiarity with the platform.
Getting up to speed can be daunting so again, there is an upfront cost in time spent learning the platform, besides the potential for extra time spent on a feature-by-feature basis.
The cost of Postgres Plus Advanced Server should be weighed against simply using PostgreSQL to decide which is the best solution for your business needs.
Microsoft Access has had a mostly positive impact on our business objectives in that most of our work is funded by grants and those grants need reports with data about our projects. Microsoft Access makes getting and organizing that data very easy.
Another positive is that since it is built on an Excel backbone, Excel files can be easily imported into Microsoft Access and also it is easy to export Microsoft Access reports, data sheets, etc. into Excel and some other programs as well. That might help more people who already use Excel learn how to work in a database.
I can't really think of a negative impact other than not many people at my workplace have ever used or understand how to use a database. Most people tend to use Excel rather than a database, like Microsoft Access.
