The GEL System provides both Front and Back Office functionality based on a SQL Server 2000 application. This is a major advancement over many of the traditional Microsoft Access based systems that are currently available. The following sections help provide the supporting considerations to this difference with Industry recommendations for developers and customers. The detail below examines the differences between Microsoft Access 2000 and SQL Server 2000. Previous versions of Access are available.

Microsoft Access 2000 falls into the desktop category and works best for individuals and small workgroups managing megabytes of data. In comparison with SQL Server 2000, Access uses a file-server architecture, rather than client-server architecture. Access has many restrictions in comparison with SQL Server and cannot be used in the case where you want to build a stable and efficient system with many concurrent users.

If you need scalability, security and robustness, you should consider a SQL Server 2000 based system instead of Access. Because Access 2000 does not support atomic transactions, it does not guarantee that all changes performed within a transaction boundary are committed or rolled back. SQL Server is integrated with Windows NT security, but Access is not. Access databases cannot be restored to the point of failure, while SQL Server databases can be. This makes administering Access databases more expensive than administering SQL Server databases.

It is therefore, generally recommended that an Access database is used only when you need to store a small amount of data in a single user (or few users) environment, or when you have very low resources, such as memory or disk. In all other cases, you should utilise SQL Server 2000.