Browser as Front-End

Hi!

I'm trying to build an app. for my parents' office. They have a small
office (5 PCs), and they currently work with a very old program that's
based on DOS. The program doesn't work well under XP, so they still use
Win 98. They had their network upgraded about a year ago. They had
Microsoft SBS 2000 installed, it includes SQL Server. I've written a
few DB's in Access before, and now I'm just learning how to use SQL.
Before I start work on their app., I have a question:

I know it's possible to create an interface that can be put on their
network and accessed via a browser. How is this done exactly?

It would be very beneficial for me, because it would mean that the new
app. would be platform independent, so that they can upgrade to XP
easily. It would also save us the cost of licensing front-end software
(e.g. Access) for each machine.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Noam Nelke, Israel.When you meant place the SQL Server on a network, you meant placing it
on a central server?

If that is the case, you can have one dedicated server for the SQL
Server and an application server where you can develop your web
application to create an Interface for this DB.
How to create the Interface?
- You can have a Web Server installed on the application server (IIS or
java based web servers) and then write your web code in any of the tons
of languages.

Hope that helps.|||Noam Nelke (NoamNelke@.gmail.com) writes:
> I'm trying to build an app. for my parents' office. They have a small
> office (5 PCs), and they currently work with a very old program that's
> based on DOS. The program doesn't work well under XP, so they still use
> Win 98. They had their network upgraded about a year ago. They had
> Microsoft SBS 2000 installed, it includes SQL Server. I've written a
> few DB's in Access before, and now I'm just learning how to use SQL.
> Before I start work on their app., I have a question:
> I know it's possible to create an interface that can be put on their
> network and accessed via a browser. How is this done exactly?

That's a question that does not have much to do with SQL Server. Most
people seem to use ASP or ASP .Net. There is also Cold Fusion out there,
and probably a few more possibilities.

> It would be very beneficial for me, because it would mean that the new
> app. would be platform independent, so that they can upgrade to XP
> easily. It would also save us the cost of licensing front-end software
> (e.g. Access) for each machine.

On the other hand, browser-based interfaces are often painful to use.

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@.sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...oads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodin...ions/books.mspx