Internet - Intranet Data Dilema

[asdf]

Hi,

Currently, I have one database for Intranet clients on the server behind the
firewall. But I was asked to allow the extranet users to access the same
data. From the security perspective what is the best way to make that data
accessible.

Should we have two databases one for Intranet and one for Extranet? In that
case the second one would be a replica but that would cost us money for the
extra MS SQL license. Maybe it is OK to have only one physical database.
Maybe MySQL is a good idea to use as a replica that would be refreshed
nightly. Or XML data would be OK to server only extranet.

What would be the best idea to do.

We are all MS shop.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Tom

[S. Justin Gengo [MCP]]

Tom,

Web services may be a nice way to give extranet users access to the data.
That way it's easy to lock down what the users have access to. I don't know
how your network is set up, but that's the solution we used when a few of
our select database had to be opened up read-only to outside users where I
work. We allow the webserver to connect to a webservices server that is only
accessible by it. Then the webservices server connects to the database.

--
Sincerely,

S. Justin Gengo, MCP
Web Developer / Programmer

www.aboutfortunate.com

"Out of chaos comes order."
Nietzsche
"asdf" <as**@asdf.com> wrote in message
news:vM*******************@news20.bellglobal.com.. .

Hi,

Currently, I have one database for Intranet clients on the server behind
the
firewall. But I was asked to allow the extranet users to access the same
data. From the security perspective what is the best way to make that data
accessible.

Should we have two databases one for Intranet and one for Extranet? In
that
case the second one would be a replica but that would cost us money for
the
extra MS SQL license. Maybe it is OK to have only one physical database.
Maybe MySQL is a good idea to use as a replica that would be refreshed
nightly. Or XML data would be OK to server only extranet.

What would be the best idea to do.

We are all MS shop.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Tom

[Andrew Robinson]

Tom,

You have several issues to deal with. One dealing with design and the other
with licensing.

On the licensing side, if you allow external users access to you SQL server
over the internet you technically need an internet connector license. You
need this whether the users are connecting to your internal SQL server or a
second server out on a web server. The easiest way around this is to deploy
either MSDE or SQL Express neither of which requires any kind of license.
MSDE is a light weight version of SQL 2000 and limits databases to 2GB. MSDE
also includes a workload governor that effectively limits you to 5 active
connections. SQL Express is based on SQL 2005 and increases the limit to 4GB
per database. The workload governor is gone. If you are an all MS shop, I
would avoid diving into MySQL.

On the design side, ideally you would have a second database and server that
is external to your network, but I can think of all kinds of exceptions to
this rule. On the other hand, the licensing issues above lend themselves to
using a separate database.

I have deployed a number of intranet / extranet solutions and find that
using an internal database with a replicated external database is usually
the best way to go. There are lots of intangibles and without knowing more
about you particular situation, it is difficult to comment beyond these
generalizations.

Hope this helps a bit,

--

Andrew Robinson
http://blog.binaryocean.com

"asdf" <as**@asdf.com> wrote in message
news:vM*******************@news20.bellglobal.com.. .

Hi,

Currently, I have one database for Intranet clients on the server behind
the
firewall. But I was asked to allow the extranet users to access the same
data. From the security perspective what is the best way to make that data
accessible.

Should we have two databases one for Intranet and one for Extranet? In
that
case the second one would be a replica but that would cost us money for
the
extra MS SQL license. Maybe it is OK to have only one physical database.
Maybe MySQL is a good idea to use as a replica that would be refreshed
nightly. Or XML data would be OK to server only extranet.

What would be the best idea to do.

We are all MS shop.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Tom

[asdf]

Is this OK to use webservices also when the Intranet is written in the old
ASP?

"S. Justin Gengo [MCP]" <justin@[no_spam_please]aboutfortunate.com> wrote in
message news:uq**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

Tom,

Web services may be a nice way to give extranet users access to the data.
That way it's easy to lock down what the users have access to. I don't
know how your network is set up, but that's the solution we used when a
few of our select database had to be opened up read-only to outside users
where I work. We allow the webserver to connect to a webservices server
that is only accessible by it. Then the webservices server connects to the
database.

--
Sincerely,

S. Justin Gengo, MCP
Web Developer / Programmer

www.aboutfortunate.com

"Out of chaos comes order."
Nietzsche
"asdf" <as**@asdf.com> wrote in message
news:vM*******************@news20.bellglobal.com.. .

Hi,

Currently, I have one database for Intranet clients on the server behind
the
firewall. But I was asked to allow the extranet users to access the same
data. From the security perspective what is the best way to make that
data
accessible.

Should we have two databases one for Intranet and one for Extranet? In
that
case the second one would be a replica but that would cost us money for
the
extra MS SQL license. Maybe it is OK to have only one physical database.
Maybe MySQL is a good idea to use as a replica that would be refreshed
nightly. Or XML data would be OK to server only extranet.

What would be the best idea to do.

We are all MS shop.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Tom

[S. Justin Gengo [MCP]]

Tom,

That shouldn't be a problem. Here's an article about consuming webservices
from classic asp:

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/070302-1.shtml

--
Sincerely,

S. Justin Gengo, MCP
Web Developer / Programmer

www.aboutfortunate.com

"Out of chaos comes order."
Nietzsche
"asdf" <as**@asdf.com> wrote in message
news:LW********************@news20.bellglobal.com. ..

Is this OK to use webservices also when the Intranet is written in the old
ASP?

"S. Justin Gengo [MCP]" <justin@[no_spam_please]aboutfortunate.com> wrote
in message news:uq**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

Tom,

Web services may be a nice way to give extranet users access to the data.
That way it's easy to lock down what the users have access to. I don't
know how your network is set up, but that's the solution we used when a
few of our select database had to be opened up read-only to outside users
where I work. We allow the webserver to connect to a webservices server
that is only accessible by it. Then the webservices server connects to
the database.

--
Sincerely,

S. Justin Gengo, MCP
Web Developer / Programmer

www.aboutfortunate.com

"Out of chaos comes order."
Nietzsche
"asdf" <as**@asdf.com> wrote in message
news:vM*******************@news20.bellglobal.com.. .

Hi,

Currently, I have one database for Intranet clients on the server behind
the
firewall. But I was asked to allow the extranet users to access the same
data. From the security perspective what is the best way to make that
data
accessible.

Should we have two databases one for Intranet and one for Extranet? In
that
case the second one would be a replica but that would cost us money for
the
extra MS SQL license. Maybe it is OK to have only one physical database.
Maybe MySQL is a good idea to use as a replica that would be refreshed
nightly. Or XML data would be OK to server only extranet.

What would be the best idea to do.

We are all MS shop.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Tom

[asdf]

Thank you so much Justin!

Tom
"S. Justin Gengo [MCP]" <justin@[no_spam_please]aboutfortunate.com> wrote in
message news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

Tom,

That shouldn't be a problem. Here's an article about consuming webservices
from classic asp:

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/070302-1.shtml

--
Sincerely,

S. Justin Gengo, MCP
Web Developer / Programmer

www.aboutfortunate.com

"Out of chaos comes order."
Nietzsche
"asdf" <as**@asdf.com> wrote in message
news:LW********************@news20.bellglobal.com. ..

Is this OK to use webservices also when the Intranet is written in the
old ASP?

"S. Justin Gengo [MCP]" <justin@[no_spam_please]aboutfortunate.com> wrote
in message news:uq**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

Tom,

Web services may be a nice way to give extranet users access to the
data. That way it's easy to lock down what the users have access to. I
don't know how your network is set up, but that's the solution we used
when a few of our select database had to be opened up read-only to
outside users where I work. We allow the webserver to connect to a
webservices server that is only accessible by it. Then the webservices
server connects to the database.

--
Sincerely,

S. Justin Gengo, MCP
Web Developer / Programmer

www.aboutfortunate.com

"Out of chaos comes order."
Nietzsche
"asdf" <as**@asdf.com> wrote in message
news:vM*******************@news20.bellglobal.com.. .
Hi,

Currently, I have one database for Intranet clients on the server
behind the
firewall. But I was asked to allow the extranet users to access the
same
data. From the security perspective what is the best way to make that
data
accessible.

Should we have two databases one for Intranet and one for Extranet? In
that
case the second one would be a replica but that would cost us money for
the
extra MS SQL license. Maybe it is OK to have only one physical
database.
Maybe MySQL is a good idea to use as a replica that would be refreshed
nightly. Or XML data would be OK to server only extranet.

What would be the best idea to do.

We are all MS shop.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Tom