Contact management system

[albra]

I'm currently creating a contact manager program that allows me to enter information such as a person's name, address, numbers etc. That part of the program is relatively easy, but here's the thing; I want to be able to access that information from multiple computers in the same network with the program installed. How exactly should I go about achieving this? If anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be great.

[jmcilhinney]

You would simply put the database on a server on the network. Your application doesn't need to change because of that, in theory at least. You simply need to change your connection string to refer to the appropriate database on the server rather then the local machine.

One thing that you will need to consider is what happens when multiple users try to work with the same data. This can be ignored in a single-user system but must be considered in multi-user systems. For example, let's say that user A retrieves a record to edit it and then user B retrieves the same record. User B modifies column B and saves the change. If user A now modifies column A and tries to save, they will be saving the original value for column B back over user B's change. What do you do? ADO.NET will detect optimistic concurrency violation and alert you. Generally, you inform your user and ask them what to do. Usually you would retrieve the data again and merge it into what they have and then try saving again.

[kleinma]

In a nutshell, the most realistic scenario is you would run a database that is on the network, like SQL Express for example, and have each machine on the network connect to that.

[KGComputers]

but here's the thing; I want to be able to access that information from multiple computers in the same network with the program installed. How exactly should I go about achieving this? If anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be great.

Do familiarize with some server configuration such as protocols and ports. This is helpful in setting up SQL Server on a network environment.

Server Network Configuration