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The most reliable method to move your Microsoft Access database to the cloud is to use a hosted remote desktop services.  Previously called Terminal Services, this functionality was designed for situations where users need to share applications from multiple or remote locations without requiring a particularly fast internet or network connection.

With remote desktop services the Access application (The Front End) is in the same place as the database (The back end), probably on the same computer and usually on the same drive. So this is just like running on your local PC when it comes to performance.

The user connects to the application over the Internet and as the only thing travelling over the network are the keyboard presses and mouse clicks the Internet is no bottleneck to performance. I don’t care how fast you can type it won’t be as fast as your internet connection, even if you’re on a dial up modem. The only data coming back down the internet are the screen refreshes, and generally screen changes are tiny.

Another great advantage of using hosted remote desktop services to move your Access database to the cloud is that you don’t need to make any design or code changes, unlike the other methods described above. It is a good idea to split the database, but this is something you should do anyway if sharing it, even on a local network, and splitting the database is usually a 2-minute job using the Access Database Splitter wizard.

Other Benefits of moving Access database to the cloud using hosted remote desktop services

Businesses like cloud based applications because they don’t need to worry about anything, they just pay the subscriptions and let the provider look after the rest.  They don’t need to worry about backups, or Anti-Virus (except on their local PCs), or support, or updates, or licences, or upgrades.  Moving Access to the cloud using a hosted remote desktop service is exactly the same.  The provider looks after everything leaving you to use your application.

Making changes to your database is also easy, you just release a new front-end and save it on the server and everyone gets it.  No more visiting each PC to deploy a new version.

Connecting to a remote desktop service just needs a small bit of software, a remote desktop client, which is built in to Windows, so it’s very quick and easy to rollout to users. There are also clients for Apple Mac, iPad and Android devices so you’re not restricted as to what computers can run your application.

I hope this information will be helpful!

Matt Henry