Questions posted on SQLServerCentral

Based on what you have answered they wouldn't have to do a whole lot to keep 4 SQL Servers running. A DBA could be checking current performance against baselines, but that isn't something you'd do constantly. As I said in my first response. The DBA would come in the morning, check the dashboard they'd built to verify jobs ran successfully, backups are good (assuming automated restore processes are in place), and that there are no outstanding alerts. I'd be looking at longest running queries and tuning them, but you said those duties don't apply. They could research ways to speed up backups and reduce space.

It's been about 15 years since I worked with Access and VBA as a front end to SQL Server. It works, but I think you can get more flexibility and functionality by using a true development language like C# or VB.NET. Also you don't have to have a license for Access for every user if you use a .NET language. As with any application the way it is architected matters more than the actual platform used. You can write a really poorly performing application on any platform.