FOSS alternatives to an MS-Access-based organizational software solution

[Uri Even-Chen]

Hi Eyal,

1. I'm a programmer with about 10 years experience in MS Access and
Visual Basic, and also some experience with MySQL.  If you are looking
for a programmer I might be able to do the job for you.

2. I think MySQL is usually the preferred open source database, if you
don't like Access you might want to switch to MySQL.

3. From my experience, programming in Access is easy and many things
can be done quickly, with much more effort to do the same things in
other programming languages.

4. MySQL is commonly used with PHP.  However you can also consider
using Java, maybe also GWT.  There are other programming options, I'm
new to Java so I don't know a lot about them.  But I know someone who
knows, you might want to hire him as a consultor. If you want his
name, write to me and I will send it to you.

Good luck!

Uri Even-Chen
Mobile Phone: +972-50-9007559
E-mail: uri at speedy.net
Website: http://www.speedy.net/




On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 7:01 PM, Eyal Rozenberg <eyalroz at technion.ac.il> wrote:
>
> (Carrying over a question I asked on Haifux)
>
> I would like some advice regarding a possible upgrade of an organizational
> software application we use at the Technion Graduate Student Organization.
>
> In fact, while initially what I need is advice and directions, we may soon
> be interested in contracting a single developer or a (small?) development
> company to entirely replace our existing system with something nice and
> FOSSy.
>
> To describe things briefly, our system:
>
> - Keeps grad student personal data.
> - Records payments and debts.
> - Communicates directly or via imported/exported data files with some
> Technion and non-Technion systems: The listserv, ANAM, the student tuition
> people etc.
> - Records non-financial operations such as collecting a gift,
> joining/leaving the organization etc.
> - Is used simultaneously by more than one person on a network (although it
> is extremely rare for two people to try to add or modify db records at the
> same time)
>
> The number of people handled by the system at any given time can range upto
> 5,000 (let's make it 10,000 to be on the safe side), and if we keep info
> about people active in the past and don't only maintain a snapshot of the
> present, then we need to be able to handle, say, 10,000 as a real estimate
> for the next several years and 30,000 to be on the safe side. There isn't
> any heavy calculation going on, it's all pretty routine and mundane.
>
> Before talking about our currently operating solution, here are some
> questions:
>
> Q1: What software platforms/toolkits/etc. would you recommend for this kind
> of a system? Please be specific, not "do something LAMP-based".
> Q2: Do you know of specific software apps, already written, which cover this
> functionality and may be easily adapted to our needs (or would not need any
> adapting)?
> Q3: Do you know people/organizations who run such systems with FOSS
> solutions, and would be willing to share their experiences?
>
> Our system as you may probably have guessed is based on MS Access, with a
> front-end-back-end split to ease multi-user use. While it is working well
> enough today, it is an endless patch-work, not well documented, without
> proper specs for anything, and showing signs of aging with every operation
> becoming slower as features are added and the number of people grows. There
> are also some foundational architectural assumptions which we want to change
> (e.g. the present snapshot vs. full history I mentioned above).
>
> Q4: Not a list-relevant question, but are more recent versions of Access, or
> Access + a full-blown SQL server, options which allow better scaling?
> Perhaps with careful coding?
> Q5: Does any of you know people we could consult regarding migrating away
> from MS-Access to a more capable platform which is both FOSS and is easy to
> extend in the way Access-based apps are?
> Q6: Is it or is it not worth thinking in the direction of web-based
> front-ends to databases, rather than plain vanilla apps?
>
>
> Any other thoughts/comments are welcome.
>
> Eyal
>
> PS 1 - We're an organization of mostly non-Technically-oriented people, bear
> that in mind. I personally am not in a technical in my organization capacity
> despite my background, and it would be difficult to do-it-myself.
>
>
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