Question Best practice for winapp < - > db online

[aheydeck]

Hi,

I'm in the making of a winforms app in vb.net.
To explain briefly, the idéa is that the app is installed locally on users comps and they login to download "settings" och user specific data to the application. The application will get info and send back info to be stored in a database during the course of using the app.

What is best practice for this type of solution?
* Connect to (ms) SQL-server directly?
* Writing server software that does all communication with DB and forwarding info to client?
* Writing webservices to communicate with db and client?
* Other solutions.

Which alternative would be best practice, or preferable, and why? =)

 

[cjard]

As youre not giving third party access to the db 9your own app is the only use of the db) I'd just use the SQLServer directly over the net, with some suitable encryption (VPN?) if necessary

Be mindful that requests will take longer, so cache any information locally where possible..