Distributing application to customers?

[Job Lot]

I have created an application which creates a financial plan for our
customers. Now my financial planner wants to distribute a copy of application
to our customer with their respective plans and limited functionality. How
can I can I do this? I am using SQL Server at the back end with several
stored procedures. I’ll have to distribute a copy of .NET Framework and MDAC
as well. Moreover I’ll have to distribute the application on a CD as it’s not
possible to fit everything on floppies. Someone please put me in right
direction to achieve these tasks, as I am doing it for first time.

Thanks

[Nick Malik]

I assume your application is a Windows Forms app.

If your "customers" are within your corporation, then this is sticky but
possible. If your customers expect to connect to you over the open
internet, I'd advise against connecting to SQL Server over the internet. It
is a little too easy to slam SQL Server with a DoS attack, and we all
remember the SQL virus about a year ago that slammed every SQL Server that
wasn't protected behind an iron-clad firewall. (SQL Slammer, I think it was
called).

No, I'd recommend against allowing your customers to connect across the
internet.

If your customers can connect to your corporate network, or a small secure
portion of it, using RAS, then you can have them dial in. They can either
run the app from their machine or use Terminal Services to run the app from
your machine. The latter is easier for you to deploy but requires users
that won't mind being trained on the intricacies of Terminal Services (e.g.
this usually works for the sales force, not the end customer).

At this point, I'd say your app isn't designed for the use that your
financial planner wants to use it for. I'd suggest adding some web services
on a server that can provide the data to a validated user and can check the
incoming data. Then jigger the app a little to call the data from the web
service instead of the database. This will allow your client-server app to
be run across the Internet, and you can put in a modicum of security by
using HTTPS for the transmission protocol.

That's probably the simplest without rewriting the app to a web app.

HTH,
--- Nick

"Job Lot" <Jo****@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4E**********************************@microsof t.com...

I have created an application which creates a financial plan for our
customers. Now my financial planner wants to distribute a copy of application to our customer with their respective plans and limited functionality. How
can I can I do this? I am using SQL Server at the back end with several
stored procedures. I'll have to distribute a copy of .NET Framework and MDAC as well. Moreover I'll have to distribute the application on a CD as it's not possible to fit everything on floppies. Someone please put me in right
direction to achieve these tasks, as I am doing it for first time.

Thanks

[Job Lot]

thanks for the reply

The client version will be a subset of main application with limited
functionalities. It will be a windows application, not web application. I
don't want user to update changes they have made to our server. I want users
to save changes locally in a database which will be distributed with client
version. Will MS Access be a good choice?

This is what I want to achieve:-

As soon as financial analyst finished a plan for a customer and decides to
create a distributable version for it:-

-Records for that particular customer along with plan details get copied
from SQL Server to a database (ms access) which will be used with client
version.

-The configuration file, setup file for the application, database (ms
access), related dll's, .net framework and mdac gets copied on a CD for
client to deploy.

Thanks