>>I'm gonna play a bit of devil's advocate here and ask why I would want to go to the trouble of moving data back and forth via XML, SOAP, etc. across the net when an ODBC connection to a remote SQL Server database via TCP-IP works very well - as does DCOM.
>>
>>Just curios ;-)
>
>If there is a firewall, ODBC and DCOM can have problems. With SOAP, you don't need the firewall admin to open a port for you.

I believe that depends on open ports. SOAP won't let you go magically through the firewall unless the firewall has an usable open port - that is, normally, port 80. The same applies to SQL Server TCP/IP communication (# 1433). But since the raised question frames the problem on a "controlled environment", that would never be an issue, I think.