Possibilities for external database with MS Access 2010 - sql

Question

This question is quite general, however, i can not find a good answer for it.
What are the possibilities for using an external database with MS Access?
I see that MySQL can be used, but I would have to setup a ODBC connection and install drivers on every machine. The issue is that I have a software developed in MS Access that uses a lot of data, and it gets very slow at processing the data when i include a lot of data.
The software analyzes data from wind turbines, so it is used by different customers and it may contain a lot of different turbines with 50,000+ rows in each data set.
I would like these turbine data to be stored in a separate file that is pointed to by MS Access, so I include the software + whatever turbine data wanted.
As it is now, i have a lot of Access database files where the data is included in the software. It becomes impossible to keep track of - Especially when I do an edit to the source code of the software, which is do a lot these days.
Another issue is that the users may only have Access Runtime.
What are my options here? Is the best method to use the Access Link function?
Best regards, Emil.
Edit:
SQL's - Can they be combined? :
SELECT q_DataLimited.YAW001, q_DataLimited.YAW002
FROM q_DataLimited
WHERE (((q_DataLimited.YAW002)>Degree_dsp() And (q_DataLimited.YAW002)<Degree_dsp_high()));
And
SELECT Count(q_WindRose_PCU.YAW001) AS CountOfYAW0011
FROM q_WindRose_PCU;
Edit 2:
Public Degree As Long
Public Function Degree_dsp() As Long
Degree_dsp = Degree * 20
End Function
I have the degree as a counter outside the function in a form being:
For Degree = 0 To 17
DoCmd.OpenQuery "q_WindRose_PCU"
DoCmd.Close
Next Degree
Edit 3:
How to combine a query and the append of it to a table?
SELECT q_PowerBinned.Bin, Avg(q_PowerBinned.POW001) AS AvgOfPOW001, StDev(q_PowerBinned.POW001) AS StDevOfPOW001, Avg(q_PowerBinned.WSP001) AS AvgOfWSP001, StDev(q_PowerBinned.WSP001) AS StDevOfWSP001, Avg(q_PowerBinned.POW002) AS AvgOfPOW002, StDev(q_PowerBinned.POW002) AS StDevOfPOW002, Avg(q_PowerBinned.WSP002) AS AvgOfWSP002, StDev(q_PowerBinned.WSP002) AS StDevOfWSP002, Count(q_PowerBinned.Bin) AS CountOfBin
FROM q_PowerBinned
GROUP BY q_PowerBinned.Bin;
And then the append of the above to a table:
INSERT INTO t_Average_Stored ( Bin, PowAvg001, WindAvg001, PowAvg002, WindAvg002, n_samples, PowDev001, WindDev001, PowDev002, WindDev002 )
SELECT q_Average_Temp.Bin, q_Average_Temp.AvgOfPOW001, q_Average_Temp.AvgOfWSP001, q_Average_Temp.AvgOfPOW002, q_Average_Temp.AvgOfWSP002, q_Average_Temp.CountOfBin, q_Average_Temp.StDevOfPOW001, q_Average_Temp.StDevOfWSP001, q_Average_Temp.StDevOfPOW002, q_Average_Temp.StDevOfWSP002
FROM q_Average_Temp;

Answer 1

I see already a few suggestions in the comments, but I am going to answer the general question you posted. In short, the possibilities are endless.
MS Access, and Excel for that matter, have excellent external data tools that allow you to connect to almost any external data source and leverage on regular SQL-based databases or even use OLAP cubes to do your analysis. Access itself should be powerful enough to handle the data sets you mention. Even Access 2010 should be able to handle millions of records with relative ease.
MS Access does have a significant limitation, which is the 2GB file size. Once your database reaches 2GB, everything goes out the window and you are very likely to get data corruption. This is a well known issue, but I don't think you are anywhere near these limits.
Before considering an upgrade, though, there are a few things to suggest:
Analyze the structure of your data and your database. Perhaps your tables are too big (lots of columns) and unnecessarily redundant. It may make sense to process the raw data you receive to split it into different tables that reduce the redundancy and improve performance.
Look into indexing some key fields in your tables. This is heavily dependent on the type of analysis you do and what queries are most common. Read up on indexes and how to use them and explore some options with actual datasets. You may be surprised how queries that used to take minutes to run become almost instantaneous when the right indexes are created and maintained.
Analyze your queries for performance. If I remember correctly, MS Access 2010 had a performance analyzer, which could improve your queries to make them run more efficiently.
If you have already looked into the items above and you decide you really need to take a step up, one fairly easy path (and inexpensive) is to install SQL Server Express, which you can download for free from Microsoft. Access was made to talk to SQL Server and the performance is many times better. You can run SQL Server Express in your personal pc and use it as a back-end for Access, or you could actually install it in a networked pc and use it as a server (behind a firewall, of course, NEVER connected to the Internet). In this setup you can access your data from several PCs.
One key thing to keep in mind once you start using Access as a front end, is that you want to push the processing to the back end, not keep it in Access. The best way to do this is to create what Access calls pass-through queries. These queries are written in the backend's native SQL language and are sent to the back end server for processing. Only the processed data comes back. If you don't do this, for example by creating the queries in the visual editor in Access instead, the raw data will be sent to Access and then Access will try to create your results. This, as you can imagine, can actually be a lot slower than your initial situation, so don't do it.
If you are not a SQL expert and need a visual editor, there is a tool that you can download from Microsoft: SQL-Server Management Studio Express. The query editor is not that different from Access and will allow you to create queries in a visual manner, but in Transact-SQL (the language of SQL Server). You can also manage your SQL Server Express with this tool and maintain your data in this manner (import, export, etc). You can create the SQL statements you need in this editor and then copy and paste into the pass-through queries in Access. The data will be available for you in the program you are familiar with, but with the power of a much bigger database engine behind the scenes.
Since I do not want to sound like a Microsoft shill, I definitely want to mention other options for external data that could be equally or even more powerful than SQL Server Express. The only reason I mentioned these is because you are already familiar with Microsoft products and the learning curve is a bit less steep. Also, most things should work together out of the box.
The first option that comes to mind is SQLite, which is a high performing database that is actually file-based. It is very small, yet very powerful and fast, and it is ideal for a locally based application like what you mention. There are also lots of graphical interfaces for SQLite and you can connect to it via ODBC from Access. Again, you want to run everything using pass-through queries and let SQLite pick up the load. SQLite is Open Source and it is free.
If you are keen on having "a real database server", then MySQL is probably the next step up. Also Open Source and free, it is very popular, which means lots of places to get support and different graphical interfaces to choose from.
Any search for Open Source Database will give you even more options to try and choose from.
One key thing to keep in mind: if you install any database server in your PC, it will become a server, and will start advertising its services in your local network or on the internet if you bring it to a local Starbucks. Be careful with that, learn how to start/stop the services in your PC, and make sure you turn them off when you are not behind a firewall. There are many exploits for different database servers and you will get quickly detected once your PC starts advertising its newly acquired abilities.
Just to close, there is no difference in the performance of Access and the runtime. Just the ability to edit the queries and so on. Whatever front end you create in Access, your users will be able to utilize in the same manner.