Selecting a Database

[sumnerm]

I am looking for opinions on selecting a DB for our site. I inherited a site ?
pretty simple that uses MS Access. There are actually 5 distinct DB used ? one
for logins, one for member information - the site has a public, and 2 distinct
private sides (members, vendors). Most of the internal applications load data
into these Access DB for daily work - member and vendor information. Some of
this data is then copied to the DB on the site.

My choice is to continue with the copies of the Access DB ? multiple DBs or
take the data and place it all in one MySQL 5.0 DB, or I just heard about there
is a Microsoft SQL ?open source? version available.

The site seems to work fine as is. I expect more traffic as we try to have
our membership and vendors utilize the site more and more ? form submission, a
forum/message board, vendor PO approval and form submission. Our DB for the
ERP system is Progress 9.0 and I will want to either query it directly or
replicate some data to another DB and query against that for the site.

[ajpowellatl]

I would move to something that gives you access to stored procedures if you
expect a high volume site. It will help you cut down on execution time. Most
systems that offer stored procs scale much better than MS Access too. Just my
2 cents.

ap

[Kronin555]

Pretty much _any_ database is better than Access.

I'm skeptical about this "open source" Microsoft SQL Server. Could you provide
a link?

My recommendation would be to migrate from MS Access to, in order of personal
preference:
PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL Server.