>Al,
>
>Thank you for your reply.
>
>I have absolutely no SQL backend in mind--since our clients will have to purchase this part I would appreciate 2 recommendations: 1) the best + it's high price and, 2) a very good on and it's more reasonable price (reasonable price to me would be under a couple of hundred per workstation + several thouand for server license).
>
>The clients we have need 27/7 uptime; have dozens of tables with 1 million or fewer records each, need to have at max 200-300 workstations banging it at any one time (although the majority of clients will have 50 or fewer workstations).
>
>For the development side, what should I install on a server in my office that will allow me to send my compiled application to a client without change? Or if I have an open source product such as MYSQL on my server and my client has an Oracle or Microsoft product--will the compiled application work without change (is it just connection strings and parameters that need to be changed is what I am asking here)?
>
>I cannot stress enough that price has nothing to do with it, quality is the deciding factor. A client pumping countless orders per hour into the system loses far more than the cost of SQL if he/she's down.

It sounds to me like you need a well-supported DB with a strong industry track record. The big 3 are (in no particular order):

- Microsoft SQL Server
- Oracle (various versions)
- IBM DB2

Each of these companies has armies of sales people and 3rd party "partners" who can educate you on developing and implementing solutions using their products.

As far as using VFP with a backend like this, the two "traditional" methods are:

- Remote Views
- SQL Passthrough ("SPT"), involving commands like SQLCONNECT(), SQLEXEC(), DBSETPROP(), CURSORSETPROP() etc.

In some ways Remote Views are simply a wrapper for SPT. There is a discussion of their relative merits on the Wiki: http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~RemoteViews~VFP

Both Remote Views and SPT use ODBC as their underlying technology to connect to the backend database.

It is also possible to use the newer OLEDB technology to connect to the backend. This requires the use of ADO in VFP for manipulating data.

VFP8 and higher include the new CursorAdapter feature, which makes working with various types of local or remote data easier.

Another option is to communicate via XML with those backend databases that support it, by using VFP's XML manipulation commands. I don't know whether CursorAdapters can be used to simplify communication via XML.