My next assignment (at work) is to revamp an application written many years ago. This app stores its data in a flat file database in a simple folder hierarchy, nothing complicated just text files. My task is to modify the app so that it can be used remotely, it would access the database using the internet rather than via files on a LAN.

My immediate thought was just to change any local database 'reads' over to some VB code using a web client. But... my fear is that this may turn out to be slow since every access would require many 'reads' over the web of the various files. My second thought was to make a local copy of the database on the users computer and manage a mirror. Should be faster, but I have to write some sync code. Thirdly I considered loading the database dynamically (into arrays of variables).

Before I get stuck into the wrong choice, what do you think would be the best approach? Since these databases already exist, I dont appear to have the option of converting them all into some other form.