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Data transfer between databases over the Internet

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I have found myself somewhat trapped in a project where the software being used is essentially set in stone, and its limitations are strangling progress. It is a client-side app written in VB with an Access backend, and it has no reasonable data migration/synchronization ability. It was designed for a single user system, and cannot even hook up to a different backend. I have no confidence in the vendor's ability to fix this situation in a timely fashion.

A lot of people are trying to tackle this (relatively simple) problem, and trying to use bulldozers to hammer a nail. I am hearing "Active Directory" and "Citrix" thrown around, and it scares me. I want to offer a clean, quick solution to consolidating this data as our field guys enter it without having to change the current work process (i.e. while continuing to use this software...I only have so much pull!)

What I would like to do is set up a relational database at our site (preferably Postgres) which would ultimately house all of the data from the many different client machines. This database is extremely simple, only consisting of 5 tables, and I have already written a simple VB tool that is capable of merging these databases into one PostgreSQL backend, so logically my task is simple.

What I need to do, however, is write a client-side app that can sit on my users' computers and accomplish this task over the Internet. I want to create a simple "check-in/check-out" type of system that my users can use to do the data upload and download themselves. As I said before, the database structure is exceedingly simple, so I will have no difficulties writing the logic. I don't want to re-invent the wheel, though, so I wanted to ask this list what would be the most sensible transfer mechanism.

1) Simply expose the PostgreSQL database backend to the Internet over an encrypted pipe and write my client-side app almost identical to my current VB app. This seems to be the most logically simple solution, however I question how fast the app will be since it has to do its work through ODBC over the Internet. Also, is opening up a port like this, even encrypted, considered a bad practice?

2) Write my own client and server program that manually transfer the data themselves over my own encrypted pipe. The client side would basically do queries to pull all of the data, I'd send it over the pipe to the server program, and it would insert or update all of the records. As far as the protocol for sending the data, I suppose I could wrap all of the data in XML, but that's pretty verbose and may "bulk up" the data. Is there any established wire protocol for doing this? This approach seems pretty labor intensive, and I feel like I'd be reinventing the wheel.

3) Perhaps there is some existing app, protocol, or combination of apps that people use for this purpose that I've never heard of. Are there any other approaches you guys have used when faced with this problem?

John



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