A brief bit of history - we switched our internal reporting over to MS Reporting Services after seeing the product in action (albeit in beta form) December last year. Gradually we're in the process of moving Access databases, Excel reports (on file shares, e-mail and Exchange Public Folders), rich-text e-mails and the odd VB front-end over to SQL Server back-ends, Reporting Services for reports, and Windows Forms (VB.NET) for the front-end. I personally have had experience moving over 3 or 4 such projects, and my two co-workers have not had any experience (some of their legacy systems are still in Access 97). I reckon there's enough migrations to keep us busy all next year!
Into the above context steps a brand new Microsoft training course "Microsoft Access: Upgrading and Migrating to SQL Server and .NET" which covers exactly what I've described above. We (me and the 2 co-workers) attended the Melbourne event on December 13th and 14th. The course was run by Adam Cogan from Superior Software for Windows which for me was a big selling point as I'd heard Adam speak before (and he was good).
I enjoyed the training, and here's why (in no particular order):
- The facilities at Cliftons were fantastic. P4 3.2/1GB RAM/17“ LCD Win XP Pro machines. Two people per desk, and in addition each desk had a monitor that displayed the presenter's computer. Classroom was 80% full, around 35 people.
- Adam was an enjoyable and knowledgeable presenter. Just hearing him describe tips and tricks was worth the price of admission for me, but then again I had already been through the process he described a number of times. And he wasn't shy about sharing his knowledge and useful tools either (which unfortunately left very little time for the hands-on labs).
- The material covered was pretty much spot-on in terms of the need it addressed. The first day a bit more time was spent on tools that Adam's company make to ease the migration process, but in my mind it was very relevant to the task at hand. Adam even branched out to talk about Extreme Programming practices, e-mail etiquette and job quoting & estimation, all within the context of an upgrade project.
- Adam was realistic in his praise/criticism about Microsoft. I didn't feel like I was at an indoctrination session. In fact, the SSW website lists a whole lot of possible improvements with MS products.
- Adam has a good sense of humour, which seemed to grease the wheels of the presentation.
There were some minor issues:
- There was no printed courseware/reference material. The labs had handouts which referred to documents available on everyone's PC. Call me old fashioned, but I want to walk away from a training session with something to show and something to look back on when I start to forget things.
- The labs were fairly short. As mentioned, in one way this was fine because Adam got to share and demo a bit more, but I'm a hands-on guy so doing things means knowledge sinks in.
- We talked about Extreme Programming, but didn't get the chance to practice it (this is probably just a personal gripe as I doubt if any other attendees would have wanted to pair program with me!) I felt that the setting and “project” was prime material for XP practices.
Here's some of the key points, for someone thinking of following the upgrade path:
- Upgrade in sections - back-end to SQL Server, reports to Reporting Services, front-end to Windows Forms. These are discrete and deliverable sections of the overall upgrade.
- Windows Forms offer a richer experience for your front-end, especially in a controlled environment (e.g. you assume that everyone has the .NET Framework).
- Separate your front-end development into a UI layer, a business rules/logic layer, a data-access layer and a separate project for strongly-typed datasets.
- NUnit is good.
There were many other points, but if I told you them all I'd be giving it away...attend the training!
Overall a great event, one of the best trainings I have ever attended. Well done, Adam and team.