Ah, Microsoft Access. I can still remember writing my first data-driven web application on my PC using Access as my data repository, only to upload it to a web server and have it seize up the minute more than ten people tried to use the site at the same time. What Access provides in ease of use it lacks in scalability, but still, many enterprise line-of-business and web applications still leverage Access in the data layer. Eventually, these applications need to migrate to a more scalable RDBMS, but taking that effort on can be daunting without solid experience and guidance.

This week’s episode of ARCast is all about the data layer and the role that Access has to play in it. In this interview, Luke Chung, founder and president of FMS, shares his view on Microsoft Access database solutions -- where they fit well, what challenges users and developers often face in creating and maintaining them, and how they have evolved from standalone desktop solutions to having the capability to be integrated with web-based and SharePoint centric solutions.

He further explains primary reasons why some Access database solutions are migrated to SQL Server database based solutions, what different approaches are used to carry out migrations, and how to get started with the migration process when a large number of Access databases are involved.