I am working with a vb6 Windows application that runs on Tablet PC's.
There are about five SQL Server 2000 databases that tie into the
application. SQL Server MSDE runs on the tablets, and currently there
is only one instance running. There are efforts underway to upgrade the
application to a .NET SmartClient.
One enhancement that needs to be made to the current application will
be to provide a 'training mode' in the application for the users. The
user will use the same application, but will work with 'dummy' data
instead of live data when in training mode.
So far as I can tell, the easiest way to accomodate this would be to
have a second instance of MSDE with 'copies' of all the databases
running, but with the 'dummy' data contained in the databases copies.
The application would have some mechanism for switching to 'training
mode', and maybe by some change of a connection string, the dummy data
would be presented in the application.
So aside from accomodating a 'training mode' feature in the
application, the application would remain the same, and the database
schema for the databases would remain the same. Only the data would
change for 'training mode'.
I'm looking for some ideas on how to approach this. This application is
used by five thousand field agents, and so we can't support this
implementation on a case by case basis. So my thought is that the
solution needs to have 'few moving parts'. If we can do this and get
away from having two instances of MSDE, that would be great. I have not
tried to set up identical databases in different directories on the
same instance (I figure that would cause a problem in a system table or
two someplace, but maybe not), but its one thing I want to investigate.
If you have any ideas on this, please share!
Thank you for your help!
CSDunnHave multiple copies of the databases and parameterize the connection
strings used by the application so that you can connect to the Live
data set or the Sample data set.
--
David Portas
SQL Server MVP
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