Any real experiences of sharing a sqlite db on a network drive?

Question

I have a client who is interested in hiring my company to do a small, custom, multi-user contact database/crm. They don't care about the technology I use, as long as the product is hosted inside their organization (no "cloud" hosting). Now the problem is that their IT department refuses to host any application developed by an outside company on their servers, additionally they will not allow any server not serviced by them inside of their network.

The only means of sharing data that IT would allow is a windows network share...

I was thinking to do the application as a fat client in Adobe Air, and let all users access a shared sqlite database, but then I read a lot of negative things about this approach.

So I'm asking you - Are there people out there who have actually tried this ?

What are your experiences ?

Answer 1

You can use an MS-Access 2007+ (accdb) file. Of course there are many database engines with much more features and much better SQL syntax, but if you are looking for a file-based database system that can be accessed simultaneously by multiple processes on a shared Windows drive, then an accdb file is as good as you're going to get I think. Also note that another popular embedded database, SQL Server Compact Edition, cannot be used on shared drives (at least not by multiple processes from different machines).

References: Share Access Database on a Network Drive: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access-help/ways-to-share-an-access-database-HA010279159.aspx#BM3

SQL Server CE Cannot be used on a shared drive: SQLCE 4 - EF4.1 Internal error: Cannot open the shared memory region

Answer 2

The ways sqlite locks databases means you have to be careful if there's a chance you'll have multiple sources trying to access the database. You either have to develop a waiting method, or a timeout, or something