The word "change" is nothing more common for the IT industry. If the management supervisor asks you for a database recommendation list today, it is very likely that the project on your recommendation list will be outdated before you start to execute the recommended solution. In this way, you may have to reconsider various software and hardware solutions so that you can: · help you complete things · Buy Access
The word "change" is nothing more common for the IT industry. If the management supervisor asks you for a database recommendation list today, it is very likely that the project on your recommendation list will be outdated before you start to execute the recommended solution. In this way, you may have to reconsider various software and hardware solutions so that you can:
· Help you complete the task
· Purchase to help others complete their work
· Development to help others better complete their work
No matter how new your messages are, some items on your recommendation list are usually outdated before your suggestions pass through layers of checkpoints and get the funds to purchase. Fortunately, no one will blame you or fall in the opposite direction-this is a natural thing in this line. Database technology often changes before you can master it.
To adapt to the ever-changing database technology, a considerable number of software engineers have gradually switched from desktop database software such as Microsoft Access and SQL Server to MySQL. Although MySQL is not a rival to SQL Server, many service providers support MySQL and regard it as a cheap and efficient alternative.
Susan Sales Harkins often publishes articles on CNET Builder.com and is an expert proficient in Microsoft Office. She is also the author of Using Microsoft Access 97 and Using Microsoft Access 2000, both of which are published by Que.
Martin W. P. Reid also frequently published articles in CNET Builder.com, an analyst and programmer at Queen's University in Belfast. He also guides relational database design courses and serves as a database consultant for small businesses in Northern Ireland.
▲Reasons for using MySQL
If you are looking for reliable database software to support your website development work, the following reasons indicate why you should consider MySQL instead of other databases:
· It is cheap (usually free of charge ).
· It has less network load.
· It is well Optimized (Highly Optimized ).
· It is relatively simple for applications to back up data.
· It provides an elastic extended interface (ODBC) for different data formats ).
· It is easy to learn and easy to operate.
· You can afford the customer support fee.
▲Questions about "$"
Simply put, you won't find anything cheaper than MySQL. In fact, MySQL is free for most users. Sometimes a small licensing fee is required, but the payment is limited to the following two situations:
· Use the MySQL server in the embedded mode
· Only use commercial application software of MySQL
For example, for a Windows MySQL server, authorization is required. Even though I only pay a little more than $200, MySQL is much cheaper than any other database software. The retail price of Office XP Developer is USD $799, and the upgrade price is USD $549. The price of Access 2002 is USD $339, and the upgraded version is USD $109.
▲Avoid congestion
In view of the need for multiple users to read and write information together, Access is not a competitor of MySQL at all. Access lost when about 15 users were connected. We also heard that when only five people are connected, there will be some problems (this does not mean that only five people can connect to websites supported by the Access database at the same time ). Simultaneous connection is actually a concurrent process ). Therefore, although the number of links that Access can process is not limited, it does not matter as long as those links are kept within the scope of concurrent processing. For read-only websites (these websites are not the minority in your imagination), they can support up to 255 users. For large websites, it is inevitable that they must be upgraded to SQL Server to improve stability and efficiency.
Relatively speaking, MySQL sets a maximum of 100 users. However, we absolutely cannot use the built-in settings of a program to judge its effectiveness. So far, we have never heard of any complaints from users who use MySQL for large and frequently accessed websites. In addition, even if there is a large amount of data exchange on the network, it does not seem to have much impact on the query optimization of MYSQL.
Using the same hardware and data sizes on Windows 98, MySQL performs faster than Access 2000-but not in all cases. The efficiency of the two methods varies greatly in terms of data update. for the same data update, Access takes two times. If you process a small amount of data on a high-speed system, you will not notice the difference between the two. However, this difference in efficiency is obvious only when you process hundreds of thousands of pieces of data. MySQL will lose Access only when it processes the object structure of the database. When creating tables and indexes, MySqL locks the tables, which slows down the processing of a large amount of data. However, the last problem mentioned above usually does not cause any problems during website development. Because on the website, we pay attention to the speed of queries when users visit, rather than the data storage structure itself. Therefore, MySQL wins in this field.
▲Other advantages of MYSQL
· Optimization
For MySQL optimization, we can say that the main problem lies in your hardware conditions, rather than MySQL itself. However, this is not the case with Access (and other desktop database software. Yes, Microsoft Jet Database is indeed efficient, but it is not the fastest. If your database is poorly designed, your website will still be affected and slow down. The database structure design also affects MySQL. for example, MySQL does not support foreign keys ). This disadvantage affects your database design and website efficiency. For websites that use MySQL for database, note that, how to reduce hard disk access I/O to a minimum, how to keep one or more CPUs at any time in the high-speed job status, and the appropriate network bandwidth, rather than the actual database design and data query statements. In fact, some website developers refer to MySQL as the fastest running database on the market. However, when many tables in your database need to be updated in a transaction process at the same time, MySQL does not run well.
· Backup
If you have had a painful experience in rescuing a damaged MDB file, you will be very grateful to MySQL. This is another advantage of MySQL over Access. First, mysqldump will generate a much better and more reliable backup file than Access. In contrast, in Access, you just copy an MDB file for backup. Second, even if the MySQL backup is partially damaged, it is much easier to restore than a corrupted MDB file.
· Scalability and data processing capability
Compared with MySQL, the Access database is like comparing the Hill of the mountain with the Pike's Peak of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The fact is as simple as this: MySQL can process much larger files than Access can process. If you obtain a 100 mb mdb file from the Access database, you need to prepare a dictionary of Records to record customers' complaints about low website efficiency. Similar databases run on MySQL, so there will be no signs of heavy load.
In addition, MySQL provides a high degree of diversity and provides many different user interfaces, including command line client operations, web browsers, and a variety of programming language interfaces, such as C ++, Perl, java, PHP, and Python. You can use a pre-packaged client or simply write an appropriate application on your own. MySQL can be used on Unix, Windows, OS/2, and other platforms, so it can be used on PCs or servers.
That's right, Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects Library (ADO) does make Access more flexible in the external data market. It allows you to retrieve data without worrying about the location of the data, and then display the data on a public interface (that is, a web browser. However, the disadvantage is that ADO is cumbersome after all (it is a hodgedge of resources) and it takes a lot of money and time to learn it, even if you are a good developer or software engineer. No one can learn ADO in one day.
▲Learning curve
If you are familiar with the database technology, you are basically no longer a problem. A database expert can learn MySQL within one day and add this experience to his resume. In contrast, Access is a much more complex database and development tool. It may take some time for a development engineer to have sufficient professional knowledge to use the software effectively.
As you expected, MySQL supports Structured Query Language (SQL ). If you have learned a certain version of the SQL language, you can do a lot better. Development engineers with VB or VBA knowledge may find that their previous ASP background can help them shorten their learning time.
▲Customer support
Although it is easy to use and free customer support does not exist, MySQL provides some electronic group lists for your reference. Some are technical and members often provide the best customer support to each other-they share experiences and expertise with each other. In addition, you can purchase a version with customer support, including email support or telephone support. In general, the customer support rate is not fixed, so we cannot provide your price information.
▲Disadvantages of MySQL
Access is a relational database management system (RDBMS), but MySQL is not at every layer. This indicates that MySQL is not the best although it is very useful. The following list records the current relevance level and management level, which are not supported by MySQL:
MySQL cannot handle complex associated database functions, such as subqueries, although most subqueries can be rewritten to join. We expect this feature to be added when the next version is released.
Another feature that MySQL does not support is transaction processing and transaction commit/rollback ). A transaction refers to a group or set of commands that are jointly executed as a unit. If a transaction cannot be completed, no instruction in the transaction is actually executed. For commercial websites that must process online orders, MySQL does not support this function, which is indeed disappointing. However, MaxSQL can be used as a separate server. it supports transaction functions through external tables.
Foreign key and refe
