I am a 2007-2012 MS Access MVP Awardee

Check my blog GPG on Access. You might find recent discussions about SharePoint and Access interesting.

Published Books

In additon to Grover Park George On Access, Two of my former colleagues at Advisicon and I collaborated on a book on Access 2010 and SharePoint, MS Access in a SharePoint World.

Why You Might Need This Database

Before deploying your brand-new database into a production environment, wouldn't you like to know whether it will stand up to a heavy load? Here is a tool that can help in avoiding situations where you deliver your database and two months later the client is complaining that it takes FOREVER to get anything done. Is Access really that bad, or is it your code?

Where the Data Came From

Most of us like to conduct tests prior to releasing our applications for normal use, but it always isn't meaningful to test on only a handful of rows of data. Recently, one of my colleagues, who goes by the screen name BananaRepublic at Utter Access, and Banana, at Access World Forums, decided to do something about that problem. He made available this testing database with several millions rows of data to his fellow Access Developers.

This sample database was developed by Patrick Crews and Giuseppe Maxia. It contains six tables and approximately 4 million records. Banana took their existing sample database and adapted it for Access.

The database can be useful in assessing:

• Which general classes of SQL statement (e.g. Joins or subqueries) will perform better?
• How does Access use indexes and how efficient it is under what conditions?
• How well will it perform in a networked environment?

While it may not answer every question, it can be useful in answering questions that require a dataset consisting of more than ten rows of data.

There are three versions: one for A2000, one for A2002-2003 and one for A2007. Each of the three zipped files is approximately 69MB. GPC Data agreed to help host the downloads. They are free to anyone who wants the data. The data is licensed under a Creative Commons license The downloads are also available at two or three other mirror sites.

Access 2007 Version

Access 2003 Version

Access 2000 Version