>We're working on our first production web service, to be called from our proprietary app (VFP7/SQL2000).
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>Question - Is there any way to maintain a SQL server transaction across a web service? That is, I would like my front end application to be able to say something like WebService.BeginTransaction() then make a variety of separate calls to the web service for various updates, inserts, etc. into the database, and then be able to close it out with some sort of WebService.Commit() call. Can the connection/state/transaction be maintained across a web service in this way? If so, is it advisable, practical, etc?
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>Otherwise, I 'm assuming I have to send all the transactions up at once to the web service and let it (associated dll) deal with transactions itself.

Web Service, IMHO, shouldn't deal with business nor data objects. As they load everytime, they should only be used as a wrapper. However, once in it, you could call something that is already in memory. There, you could set your environment only once and you'll have your connection in there.