ComboCurve: ARIES - Preparing and Transferring Access databases (.accdb or .mdb)

ComboCurve: ARIES - Preparing and Transferring Access databases (.accdb or .mdb)


Preparing and Transferring ARIES Access databases (.accdb or .mdb)

General Size Limits

ComboCurve has full support for ARIES (MS Access databases) and PHDWin imports.  Feel free to submit a ticket and a Customer Success Representative can help in the following but it is presented here to aid in this effort.

Prior to importing ARIES MS Access databases into ComboCurve and/or prior to sending databases to be converted by ComboCurve Support, it's important to be aware of certain file size limitations:
  1.       500 MB size limit for ARIES Access Databases imported into ComboCurve
    1.       When importing larger databases into ComboCurve, it is possible to import the ARIES database without production and bring in the daily or monthly production separately via CSV file(s).  This helps reduce the main Access database below the limit in many cases.
  2.       1 GB size limit for importing CSV files (i.e., monthly or daily data loads) into ComboCurve
  3.       For files emailed to ComboCurve Support, we can receive up to 50 MB and send up to 25 MB.  Your email system may vary.
    1.       Let your Customer Success Representative know if you need to send a larger file and Combo Curve can set up a Google Drive link or work with your IT department using your preferred share method.
  4.       When exporting to an MS Access .accdb or .mdb, ComboCurve is limited to exporting 3.5 million lines of production data each in the daily or monthly tables.  However, exporting to CSV/TXT file method removes this limit.
    1. When opening any exported CSV file, please be aware that MS Excel can only handle about 1.04 million rows and saving files larger than that from Excel can result in truncation of data.  Avoid saving large CSVs from Excel - consider using an appropriate text file editor instead by right-clicking and "open with".
    2. MS Access has a 2 GB size limit for both .mdb and .accdb databases.  When bringing exported ComboCurve data into MS Access from CSV files, best practice is to use Compact and Repair Database (see procedure below) between each import operation. 
Note: one other size limitation is in well count: when bringing in forecasts into ComboCurve, if there are more than 10,000, these will be broken up into tranches in the forecast tool.  These can be recombined by "Merge Forecast" if desired.

Zip it:  Add the Access .mdb or .accdb File to a Compressed Folder

If a database meets the size limits and needs to be emailed, zipping it before sending is an easy method to facilitate speed and ease of sending.   Right-click the .mdb or .accdb file, choose Send To...Compressed (zipped) folder



Please Note: ComboCurve does not take import of Access databases directly in a .zip file so please unzip to upload.  If you inadvertently try to upload a zip (except for the .A file zip), it will result in an error like the following:


Do the following as needed for larger databases:

Preparing an ARIES MS Access Database
      
MS Access databases have a tendency to allocate memory internally that is not actually used for data.  Databases always "grow".  This can result in ,mdb or .accdb file sizes that are significantly larger than what's required for the data contained within.  Below are some steps to reduce the size of an MS Access database.  Utilize any or all of these as needed if it is necessary to reduce file size below one or more of the limits above.  Conversely, it is not necessary to do all this on smaller databases.

Compact & Repair in MS Access

Open the ARIES Access Database in MS Access and click the Database Tools menu.  Click the Compact and Repair Database button.  A progress bar should appear in the lower-right corner of your screen while it compacts and repairs, and usually there are no other messages to indicate when it's finished. This can take a while on large databases.



Delete Data from the ARIES Economics Output Tables

Two tables (AC_MONTHLY and AC_ONELINE) in MS Access are created by ARIES runs that populate economic data to be used to query economic output.  These are not needed for import and can be cleared since they can be repopulated by subsequent ARIES runs.  The AC_MONTHLY can be particularly large since it stores many columns of data on every well.  

Note that AC_MONTHLY is often confused with AC_PRODUCT.  The former is the economic run store, the latter is the monthly production table which is needed.

Delete Key Method (easy, but slower for larger tables) - Approximately as much time as it would take to export the data.

      1.  Choose the Tables database objects:

      

2.  Double-click the AC_MONTHLY table (monthly economics output), highlight all the data by clicking the upper-left corner of the table, and hit delete.  Wait for the data to delete and then close and save the table. 

      


DELETE Query Method (still pretty easy, handles all table sizes) - Approximately 1/10 the time it takes to export the data or delete the data via the keyboard delete button .
     1.  Open a new Query Design window...

      

             ...and switch to SQL View

      

     2.  In the query, type DELETE *.* FROM AC_MONTHLY;   <--- include the semicolon and then click the ! Run button.  For other tables, use the same syntax but replace AC_MONTHLY with the other table names. 

        
      The following dialog will appear:
      

      If the records count appears correct, click Yes in the dialog.

Repeat the delete operation for the AC_ONELINE, AC_DETAIL and/or any other large custom tables that are unused by ARIES @Macros, etc.  This data is not needed in ComboCurve and similar economic output can be remodeled.  Consider deleting data from AC_TEST as ComboCurve does not currently (1Q 2022) import this data.

Export Daily and Monthly Production to CSV Files for Separate Import


To export large production tables such as AC_DAILY and AC_PRODUCT to CSV files, do the following in MS Access for each table:





    






Compact and Repair the Database Again

      Repeat the Compact & Repair Database Operation above.  This fully frees up the space created by deleting the data above.