Denver Area Access Users Group

Last month, in Part One, we looked at getting the data out of Access and into SQL, locally and in the cloud. This month, we'll wrap up with how putting the Access front-end in the cloud gives us simplified single-machine management and cross-platform access, and how other services, like Power BI and web/mobile apps, can easily interact with the same back-end database that Access uses.

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One strategic advantage that Microsoft points to in its battle for the cloud, is Azure's superior integration with on-premises Windows environments, often referred to as the "hybrid cloud". For example, in a September article in Forbes, analyst Bob Evans lists three reasons why Microsoft is winning the cloud wars, the third being, "Microsoft's end-to-end creation of hybrid technologies that allow customers to move seamlessly from the cloud to on-premises technology."

So, does Access have a part to play in all this? Well, while Access has no native web or mobile offering like other core Microsoft Office applications, it actually plays magnificently well in the cloud-first, mobile-first world. In this presentation, we'll look at specific real-world examples -- and show how they're done -- of an Access front-end using a cloud backend migrated from Access, of Access running in a cloud virtual machine or desktop, and of the backend hooking up to various cloud services, like Power BI and Azure Web Apps. As a bonus, we'll demonstrate an ASP.NET MVC version of Access Web Apps!

You'll come away with a vision of Access in the brave new world, and step-by-step instructions for making these examples happen. Join us to ring in the New Year with a look at how Access can thrive in a cloud-first, mobile-first world!

George first encountered Microsoft Access when using the thirty-plus floppy disk versions of Office to teach Statistics and MIS in the early 1990’s. It’s been true love ever since. George has worked as a software developer for the past twenty-five years, half of that time at Microsoft (in just about every group other than Office). He is the founder and president of Dawson Butte Software, working primarily on .NET applications (often with Access somewhere in the mix). George still has a commercial site or two that is driven by an Access database sitting in the server file system.

Download the presentation materials