The Problem
A distribution company had outgrown their Microsoft Access database. Fifty employees across three locations used it daily for orders, inventory, and customer management. The file approached the 2GB limit, queries took minutes to run, and corruption incidents increased to several per month.
IT leadership knew they needed to move to SQL Server but feared losing years of business logic embedded in Access forms, reports, and VBA. Previous vendors quoted six-month timelines and full application rewrites that would disrupt operations.
Users were frustrated. Management could not get reliable reports during peak season. Every corruption event meant hours of downtime and manual data reconciliation.
The Solution
I designed a phased migration: SQL Server backend on their existing infrastructure, Access front-end retained so users kept familiar screens. I migrated all tables, relationships, and indexes with validation scripts comparing row counts and checksums before cutover.
Heavy queries and reports were rewritten to run against linked SQL tables with optimized indexes. I implemented a split architecture with the backend on SQL Server and front-end files distributed to each location.
Cutover happened over a weekend: final sync, DNS/path updates, and smoke testing with power users before Monday opening. Rollback plan was documented but not needed.
The Outcome
Migration completed in 8 weeks with zero data loss. Report runtimes dropped from 4–6 minutes to under 15 seconds. Corruption incidents stopped entirely. All 50 users continued working in Access forms while the backend scaled on SQL Server.
“We were terrified of losing our Access workflows. Robert Terry moved us to SQL Server without disrupting the team. Reports that took minutes now run in seconds.”