Einar,

It's not so much me/we making up our minds. We've been told by the higher ups that our application must target BOTH MS SQL Server and Oracle backend servers. Does this come as a surprise to you? I wasn't since those two seem to be THE database servers of choice by our clients. As such, our stumbling block right now is how to make offline/disconnected mode work!

Surely this is not a new issue facing .NET developers is it?


>Mike,
>I would first make up my mind about the backend server (it doesn't seem like you have decided between MSSQL or Oracle). IMHO if you select MSSQL as the backend database server I would use MSDE as the local server (in disconnected situations). MSSQL and MSDE go hand in hand and code to update data is the same for MSSQL and MSDE. MSDE and MSSQL is the same thing with the exception of concurrent user restrictions on MSDE, but if you only use MSDE as a local server in a disconnected state there will always only be one user accessing MSDE. Going the MSSQL/MSDE way you might be able to use replication as sugested.
>
>Yes you can also use fox tables as your local datastore, but code for updating data in connected state will be different than in a disconnected state and I think replication is out the window.
>
>Einar
>
>>Hi Einar,
>>
>>Thanks for the reply. I kinda figured MS SQL Server and MSDE would go "hand-in-hand" but it's unfortunate that they can't magically sync their data :( I always like the less coding is best approach. Anyway, I've heard that they're basically the same thing except MSDE is "crippled" in some way related to the number of concurrent hits or something to that effect.
>>
>>Do you have any comments re. ORACLE and MSDE? How about the Fox? Can it fit in here as the local datastore?
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Mike
>>