I am writing an application that would reside on a users machine and pull information from a database. At first, I was going to develop the information pages as ASP pages and just show them in a webbrowser control. My thoughts were that this approach would allow the best scalability in the event that my software is used by millions of users that all need the same info at the same time, and it would be easier to port from VB to JAVA with the data presentation screens already in ASP.
But, now I am questioning that logic. Well, not so much the logic as the look and feel of the ASP pages. I am not a proficient ASP programmer. I can make it work....but the interface is poor when compared to a desktop interface.
I am considering a form as opposed to the ASP pages to display the data. What is the most efficient means of extracting data from a SQL database across the internet?
Obviously I will need to make use of disconnected recordsets....but what about limiting the data returned? And, what is the quickest way to get 3 million users the same data (well, almost the same)?
I had intertained the thought of going through the web pages to get back an XML dataset, and import it into an ADO recordset for manipulation, but how slow is it. Does XML data transfer have any limitations as far as size (like RDS's ConvertToString method - converts a recordset to a MIME formatted string for HTTP transmission - has a limit of 400 rows and 1024 bytes per row. Fine if your database/recordset is small....but what if it is big?)
Any thoughts/experiences you may have with reading recordsets across internet connections would be greatly appreciated. (*Recordset will be read-only.)
