Mirror Database

[SteveSydney]

I am creating a split access database that will be updated by multiple users.



How can I mirror the updates to the back end databases, so that I have a copy that I can use if the laptop containing the main database fails?

Or alternatively, how can I set up a hot backup, that will run every few minutes?

Suggestions?

[June7]

A back up every few minutes, that sounds like a system hog. I always relied on the network server backups. Never had to restore a backup for the backend.

If this laptop is business critical, you should be doing hard drive backups nightly already.

[CJ_London]

not clear what you mean.

Normal setup is each user has a front end on their machine and shares the backend database on the network server.

Assuming this is the case, explain 'back end databases' and 'the laptop containing the main database'

[SteveSydney]

We will be using this access database to support a bring and buy at a war games convention. Over the course of the weekend we will sell more than five thousand items and then need to pay each of the over one hundred sellers their money.


To run the system we have five lap tops. One of which will host the back end database.

Obviously if that lap top fails we will have lost all of our data unless we can mirror it or back it up on a regular basis.

I understand that to perform a normal backup, we need to close all of the front end applications, which would seriously disrupt the selling.

[CJ_London]

on the laptop that is hosting the backend I would set up a task to run say every 10 minutes to copy the backend to another laptop. Users can carry on working. There is still a risk that the backup occurs whilst the backend is being updated, potentially resulting in a corrupted backup (the back end itself will be OK). So suggest the routine also compacts the backup after copying to verify and if it fails, repeats the copy and compact.

You can also have this code create a text file to indicate a successful backup or not which can be checked by the users front end (perhaps each time they create a new order or when they return to the main menu, depends how your app works) and display a warning message if necessary so your admin person can go check on the situation.

Also suggest each backup should have its own name so you can go back to an earlier one if required - to save space perhaps after 10 backups replace backup 1 rather than a new backup 11.

Routine can be written in another access file that just contains the code to do the copy and verify then close. the timer event then can just open this file and an autoexec macro can then run the code.

Note access is at risk of corruption if running across a wireless network if there is a glitch in the connection. So better to hardwire the laptops together.