DB Update auf dem WWW-Server

Did you ever try to update a mdb database that is running? And did you update it while a Live-Event, where actual results should go from the times database to the web all over the day?

Why not simple copy a mdb every 20 minutes?

First, if you call it live, it should be live, especially when showing online live videos at the same time. But - that is not the problem. For the ironman day we expected about 80000 visitors using the database. Some weeks before the i-day we were not able to override the used all the day database using FTP.

Isn't there anything we could try?

Sure, a simple TCP/IP connection to the database, RDO or a Toll out of the MS Office developer collection would make life easier.
But - what to do when the provider doesn't support it?

So, play it again by yourself:

Let us have a look at the ideas. A solution like this is highly driven by your special problem and your needs to do the updates. Therefore the problems implementing your own little tool will deal with specification more then with programming.

Schema DB-Update

The local Controlling DB (lokale Steuerungs DB) recognizes what recordsets have just been updated to the WWW DB. And it asks the database holding the real data (in this case - the results of all the ironmen) for any new record and puts it to the WWW.

1. In short: our problem:

Racers numbers as our (simplified) primary key where - of course - fixed when the race started. So the problem was reduced to update the results of the finishers. That means to copy the records having a finish time (NOT NULL) to the results db

2. The local controlling system

A connection to the results database table (was oracle), a local table holding the racers numbers that were send before to the WWW ("IsUpdated") and a query that gets all racers and their results where the number is not in the set of updated numbers and the finish time in the results db is NOT NULL.

3. The WWW Server

An .idc had to use just a simple statement:

UPDATE StarterIronman
   SET SchwimmZeit = %Schwimm%
       WechselZeit1 = %Wechsel1%
       ...
   WHERE StartNr = %Nr%

just for diagnostics the .htx gives us back the number and "ok" (or not - if there is any problem).

4. All together: Update the Internet-DB

In short:

Get all ironmen from ResultDB 
	where FinishTime NOT NULL and NOT IN IsUpdated

For Each ironman do
	GoToHTTPAdresse "...idc?Schwimm=" & _
		Format$(Erg.Schwimmzeit) & ...
	If Answer contains "ok" (test in Explorer's event ) then
		Insert Startnumber in LocalDB as IsUpdated

... and do it everey 1-2 minutes.

And how do you do it doday?

Ok, this tip is an older one from times before ASP. In special, when you try to put any times (there are 6 times + 5 going-through times. ANd these times multiplied by 2300 competitors) on the server, you have to minimize the http-requests: just load up any 2 minutes a comma separated data file and process it by ASP.

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