CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythondatabasevb.netsqlitems-access
walexnelson
walexnelson

Reputation: 424

Standalone Desktop App with Centralized Database (file) w/o Database Server?

I have been developing a fairly simple desktop application to be used by a group of 100-150 people within my department mainly for reporting. Unfortunately, I have to build it within some pretty strict confines similar to the specs called out in this post. The application will just be a self contained executable with no need to install.

The problem I'm running into is figuring out how to handle the database need. There will probably only be about 1GB of data for the app, but it needs to be available to everyone.

I would embed the database with the application (SQLite), but the data needs to be refreshed every week from a centralized process, so I figure it would be easier to maintain one database, rather than pushing updates down to the apps. Plus users will need to write to the database as well and those updates need to be seen by everyone.

I'm not allowed to set up a server for the database, so that rules out any good options for a true database. I'm restricted to File Shares or SharePoint.

It seems like I'm down to MS Access or SQLite. I'd prefer to stick with SQLite because I'm a fan of python and SQLAlchemy - but based on what I've read SQLite is not a good solution for multiple users accessing it over the network (or even possible).

Is there another option I haven't discovered for this setup or am I stuck working with MS Access? Perhaps I'll need to break down and work with SharePoint lists and apps?

I've been researching this for quite a while now, and I've run out of ideas. Any help is appreciated.

FYI, as I'm sure you can tell, I'm not a professional developer. I have enough experience in web / python / vb development that I can get by - so I was asked to do this as a side project.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1800

Answers (2)

Larry Lustig
Larry Lustig

Reputation: 51000

SQLite can operate across a network and be shared among different processes. It is not a good solution when the application is write-heavy (because it locks the database file for the duration of a write), but if the application is mostly reporting it may be a perfectly reasonable solution.

Upvotes: 1

walexnelson
walexnelson

Reputation: 424

As my options are limited, I decided to go with a built in database for each app using SQLite. The db will only need updated every week or two, so I figured a 30 second update by pulling from flat files will be OK. then the user will have all data locally to browse as needed.

Upvotes: 0

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