Getting the best performance out of Access In the Cloud Fastest Think about Access running on your local PC. Here the forms and queries are in the same place as the tables, likely on your C: drive, so performance is usually spot on.
Fast The next layer is when Access in the cloud is running on your corporate network. Often each user has a front end executable file with the forms, queries and reports, connecting to a back end database, containing the data tables, on a shared network drive. This approach will work well, but will be slightly slower compared with running locally.
Slower You could in theory run Access in the cloud across a Wide Area Network but unless you’re on a 100mbps or higher (ideally gigabit) leased line between the application and the data, you will find performance probably close to being unacceptable.
Slowest So imagine trying to connect an Access application to its database that’s somewhere out on the internet such as SharePoint on Office 365, every developer I’ve spoken to that’s tried this has given up on it.
Access in the cloud on hosted SQL Server Another option to move Access database to the cloud you will hear mentioned is connecting the local Access application to a hosted SQL database. Like the SharePoint method mentioned above, you still have a disconnect between the application and its data, so unless your business has an incredibly fast internet connection there is still likely to be a hit on performance.
Access on Remote Desktop Services
Fastest The most reliable method to move your 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.