A family of Microsoft relational database management systems designed for ease of use.
Tim,
The fact that FE and BE reside on the same server does not change the network issue. The fact of the matter is that processing is done on the local machines. Therefore, data packets are moving between the local PC and the servers. These data packets can be sensitive to glitches in that traffic that would not affect other programs.
By the way, running the FE from the server is not recommended. FES should be installed locally and not shared. Doing so will limit the amount of network traffic.