XML Question

[EduardoArias]

Hello everybody,

This is my problem. I have a web based application that handles appoinments online as well as the creation of user accounts. Each time that a user creates an account, the application needs to check if the user already exists. In addition, each time that an appoinment is made, the application needs to save this data into a serverthat is different to the web server.

Now, the two databases that contain the customer information (demographics) and other records such appointments, reside in a separate server that is actually in an office, I'll call this the "local" server. In addition, the web based application server is in a totally different location, I'll call this the "remote" server.

My question: How can my web based application in the "remote" server have access to the databases in the "local" server?

I have been reading about this in some of the MSN articles, and I have found out that I can use XML to read the database content and transfer this into the "remote" server. Is this correct? If someone could point me out to a good material (Book, article, tutorial, etc) I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you,



Eduardo

 

[damber]

depending on your security requirements, and the technologies you are using, you can just open the database directly from the application server using a different db connection string with the ip of the remote server and relevant credentials etc. (though this isn't recommended in most application-to-application scenarios)

You could also use database replication, though again, it depends on what db technology you're using, and isn't usually the best method for this type of requirement.

However,.....
If you want to treat these as truly separate 'applications', which is likely to be the preferred approach in this instance, then you will need to create api's/interfaces in the applications that represent the functions you want to support (e.g. validate user, create appointment etc), you can then use whatever technology, transport protocol and data format you feel appropriate - XML is one choice, and likely to be the right one for most scenario's, coupled with http as the transport and you're on your way to a webservice - which most app servers support with minimal effort. This will achieve a point-to-point integration of the two applications. If you are in a corporate environment, you may want to consider using an intermediary integration platform if you have one, and using standard formats for data interchange between the apps (e.g. OAGIS BOD's).

So, you're probably best asking specific questions in the relevant technology forum (e.g. ASP.NET, MSSQL Server etc) to take this further

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