Access 2007 & MySQL
Access 2007 and other releases of this user-friendly desktop database software from Microsoft can serve as a gateway to information stored in MySQL, which is software frequently used to store and manage large or complex collections of data on servers. MySQL, known as a relational database management system (RDBMS), became an Oracle product with that company's purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2009, but is available for free in a version called "Community Server."
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Configurations
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Access 2007 users run the software from their own desktops, while MySQL might be installed on the same computers, other machines on a local network, or servers on the Internet. MySQL is available for multiple computer operating systems, including Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac OS X and various flavors of the freely available Linux. Where MySQL is running is irrelevant to Access users as long as their computers can communicate with a MySQL server.
Connectivity
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Access communicates with MySQL using Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), a technical standard that defines a "universal translator" for any number of applications that need to exchange information stored in databases. Essential to bringing the two applications together is the ODBC driver software provided by the developers of MySQL, named "Connector/ODBC." The ODBC driver is installed on the computer running Access software. The connection details required to log on to the database are stored in a data source name (DSN) created using the Windows utility Data Source Administrator. With the Windows computer now able to connect to the server, and with ODBC doing the translating, Access can read and write to the database without having to know how MySQL works under the hood.
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Examples
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Individuals and small businesses may choose Access to help create simple forms to guide users in entering information stored in MySQL and to later generate reports using that data. Access can help users analyze information in a database without advanced knowledge of SQL, a special computer language that tells MySQL and other database systems how to store, read and calculate data.
An Access user, for example, may extract payment amounts recorded in an online store's MySQL database and then use Access to calculate totals and other summaries.
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