Nancy,

First, thank you a million for the research and this message.

>
>If you use your current syste, the VFPOleDB provider will have to be installed on the server with the ASP.NET app. If you redesign to use web services, then you wouldn't need it, so far as I can tell.
>

I think I will find an ASP.NET hosting company that will allow to have VFPOLEDB installed. In fact the one that I use for my web site (DiscountASP) promised that they will have VFP 9 Ole Db provider installed very soon.

>>Now I have a situation where a customer wants to put the ASP.NET on Intranet (they want me to find a hosting site and so on). The situation will change, the VFP DB is no longer within a network so I can't have the ASP.NET pages call VFP Stored Procedure. So I am guessing that the ASP.NET app will have use Web Services to send the info and get the info from VFP app (installed on some file server in the company network).
>
>It doesn't _have_ to use Web Services. As Bonnie mentioned, remoting is another choice. (I always forget what they call it, for some silly reason.)
>

I have heard the word "remoting" but really don't know anything about it.

>>
>>1. Does it mean that VFP app has to run all the time to make sure that ASP.NET pages can communicate with VFP database?
>
>No. Your VFP App won't be doing anything in this scenario. See below where I quote Mike Helland.
>

I thought that all Mike Helland does all day is play his guitar <g>.

>>
>>2. The PC where VFP app is installed needs to have Internet connection, right? If it is only DSL or Cable modem (and not T1), will this slow down communication considerably?
>
>It will need a fixed IP, specifically. It will be the server, not the client, so to speak.
>

I am sure this is not difficult to arrange.

>>
>>3. Where do you recommend to start on this? Any articles, white papers, etc, would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Whew. Okay, I found an article comparing Remoting and Web Services.
>
>http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/bdadotnetarch14.asp
>

Thank you so much for the link. I will print the article and read it.

>Hope that helps with one piece of the puzzle.
>
>Mike Helland elsewhere made the following observation (he is also a big fan of web services):
>
>

The solution is to put a web server on the intranet that is exposed to
>the internet (a Win2000 or XP Pro computer will do). Write your business
>object in VFP, compile it as a DLL COM object, and use the Web Services
>Builder from the project manager to create an ASP based SOAP listner for
>the COM object.
>
>Then your ASP.NET app on the internet can call the WSDL generated by VFP
>to access the data it needs off of the internet.

One lingering concern in my mind about yours and Mike's approach is when/if we have a web server on the intranet exposed to the internet we will need something faster than DSL line. That is, I can tell the customer that they need to buy a web server box, install all the necessary software, like .NET, etc. But if they only have DSL in the building, bringing T1 (this is the only thing I know that is faster than DSL, right?), the cost could be prohibitive.

Again, thank you very much for your help.