All,

I have an object that pulls data in from SQL Server and processes it in multiple cursors. The processing has to take place in multiple embedded scans and loops so I think VFP is a better engine than SQL for the actual processing. Once the processing is done, the results can then be sent back to SQL for storage. The processing time currently varies from a few seconds to several minutes (less than 15), but it's only going to get worse as we grow.

So, I figured I could expose the object as a COM object and have it reside on a server. Then, the local app could call it to launch the processing and the user could move on to set up another process without their machine being tied up.

I can think of a few different methods for doing this (including a web service to launch the process), but I would think the simplest would be something along these lines:

* A client pulls and manipulates the data to be processed
* The client saves the data to SQL Server
* The client sets a flag in one of the tables signifying that the data is ready for processing
* An application running on the server just sits and checks for those flags
* The server app sees the flag and starts processing
* The server app can update a progress indicator in the table
* The client can check on the progress at any time

Any thoughts about this? What's the best way to accomplish this goal?