>If I understand your suggested approach it doesn't sound very efficient in that it entails pulling all the timestamps from the main DB to the web server. Could you not have code running on the main DB machine that checks for changes and simply have that write directly to the web server DB copy? But that's almost the same as replication but probably less efficient and with greater latency.
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>So : why are you sure that replication is not a viable option? It might well be worth checking the volume of transactions on the main DB - if you use transactional replication it's changes to the log file that control what gets copied to the subscriber.
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>Or, going right back to basics, have you really considered simply having the web site hit the main database directly for information?
>I've got one site that does this for everything except images so the actual volume transferred is relatively small. With a bit of judicious cacheing the overall performance is fine.

The client doesn't have any Web server infrastructure. So, it has to be done by the use of our server. Also, this has to be a generic option for all the clients. All the clients have various setups, so replication wouldn't do. Also, replication would imply that I would have a database on the Web Server and the only one I have is the main database and this is not related to the client site POS applications. Also, the clients do not have the infrastructure to install SQL Server, nor the resources to maintain all the related issues with it. So, on 10 clients, 3 might use POS #1, 4 POS #2 and the rest another type of POS application. So, what they have on site could be totally different from one to another. So, I need to install something generic locally that will be able to adapt to various POS I will find on my way. For all of them, they also do not intend to sell online. This is only to show their items in order to show what they have on store and attract customers at the store. They do not want to sell online because they want to keep the control at the store, avoid charge backs, etc. But, there is the possibility that they want to take orders online but not offer the purchase. So, onsite, they will receive the order from the administrative options and by email, prepare it, but the customer will have to go onsite to get the goods and pay for it. So, this is related to the issue where they also want to have some kind of real inventory tracking mechanism. For most of them, this is about big items, such as cars and trailers. I have only one right now which is a computer store and they are showing their games, CPUs, PC packages, memory cards, etc.