ACC97: Using Microsoft Jet with IIS

• Microsoft Access 97
• Microsoft Internet Information Server versions 3.0, 4.0, 5.0

SUMMARY

Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

When you need unlimited users, 24x7 support, and ACID transactions, Microsoft strongly recommends that you use Microsoft SQL Server with Internet Information Server (IIS). Although Active Server Pages (ASP) works with any OLEDB and ODBC-compliant database, IIS has been extensively tested and is designed to work with Microsoft SQL Server when doing high transaction traffic and unlimited users that can occur in an Internet scenario.

NOTE: "ACID" is an acronym for the four properties of transaction-processing systems: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability.

ASP also supports using the Microsoft Jet database engine as a valid data source. The Access ODBC Driver and Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Jet are not intended to be used with high-stress, high-concurrency, 24x7 server applications, such as web, commerce, transactional, messaging servers, and so on.

When running Microsoft Jet in an IIS environment, it is recommended that you use the native Jet OLE DB Provider in place of the Microsoft Access ODBC driver. The Microsoft Access ODBC driver (Jet ODBC driver) can have stability issues due to the version of Visual Basic for Applications that is invoked because the version is not thread safe. As a result, when multiple concurrent users make requests of a Microsoft Access database, unpredictable results may occur. The native Jet OLE DB Provider (Msjtor35.dll version 3.52.1527.4) includes fixes and enhancements for stability, performance, and thread pooling (including calling a thread safe version of Visual Basic for Applications).

Both the ODBC driver and OLE DB Provider provide a wrapper around the Microsoft Jet database engine, which provides the core functionality of both the Access ODBC driver and Jet OLE DB Provider. While Microsoft Jet is consciously (and continually) updated with many quality, functional, and performance improvements, it was not intended (or architected) for the high-stress performance required by 24x7 scenarios, ACID transactions, or unlimited users, that is, scenarios where there has to be absolute data integrity or very high concurrency. Microsoft has performed very robust Multi-User/Stress scenarios that are designed to verify functionality in the appropriate usage space of Microsoft Jet, and addresses any issues that may be revealed.

MORE INFORMATION

The latest OLE DB provider for Microsoft Jet can be obtained from the following sources.

• Q172733 Updated Version of Microsoft Jet 3.5 Available on MSL



• Microsoft Data Access Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Microsoft Data Access Components Version 2.0 (MDAC).
  
  The MDAC 2.0 is available at the following Web address: http://www.microsoft.com/data/mdac2.htm

• Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise
• Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise
• Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Enterprise

REFERENCES

For additional information about using the Microsoft Jet database engine and the native Jet OLE DB Provider, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q191754 How to Open Secured Microsoft Access Database In ADO 2.0 Through OLE DB

Q185033 Adoacc.exe Demonstrates Using ADO with MS Access 97

Q172403 ADOVB.exe Demonstrates How to Use ADO with Visual Basic

• "The Microsoft Jet Database Engine Programmer's guide (2nd Edition)" offers extensive discussion on the tuning, usage, and limitations of the Microsoft Jet database engine.



• The file, JOLTREAD.TXT, which ships with the products listed in the "More Information" section earlier in this article.

Additional query words: inf

Keywords          : kbdta 
Version           : WINDOWS:97; winnt:3.0,4.0,5.0
Platform          : WINDOWS winnt 
Issue type        : kbhowto 

Last Reviewed: May 12, 1999