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>Let us assume the Internet development group will allow us to use VFP tables. I am having a hard time understanding how 30 different sets of tables can be accessed over the Internet. Depending on the builders logon, of course I would know which set of tables. But is it as simple as directly to the correct set of tables? What is that technic called and what is envolved?
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>Brenda

Brenda:

Sounds to me like you need to essentially become a clearinghouse for the 30 clients you have and route requests to them and publish their data for consumption by their clients.

Do your clients have internet sites where their customers will go to review the data and make the requests? Or will they (your clients customers) all come to your internet site and search for a particular client of yours?

If your clients are maintaining their own site, I would suggest some sort of web service you create and maintain that your client's implement in their site. If everyone can come to your site, it's easier, and you just route requests to and from your clients and their customers. A third option would be to create a 3rd party site (independant of your company and your clients) that would act as the clearinghouse.

As far as data is concerned, I don't understand why you have to use SQL... not that there is anything wrong with SQL. You can either create separate databases for each client or one database with a client identification. Then upload data from them for presentation on the web, and receive information via the web from their customers and populate the tables on-site as necessary. You need to determine what timeframe is acceptable for the data on the site... ie, do you have to have realtime data or can you have day-old data? If you have to have realtime data access, you will need a high speed connection to each client site and (reliable) access to the data. If day-old data can be used, you can run some sort of program nightly to replicate the data to your local server.

Another option to consider is a thin client solution for your clients and you hosting all the applications on your LAN. That would take out all the need to transfer the data since it would be at your site already.

HTH