Hello,

I'm an application developer (still in college though). I'm working on a little web project.

I've thought over and researched how this could be done, and this is what I plan to do (however, I don't know if this goes against web programming best practices or if it's completely fine to do).

I'm going to have an administrator tool designed in VB.NET, which will function as a mini-FTP client. The administrator will be able to upload files to the web server, and details about the files will be stored in a database that is also located on the web server.

In order for this to work, whenever the administrator is going to upload a file, the administrator tool will download the database from the web server, make the changes that the administrator wanted, then upload and overwrite the previous database file on the web server.

The administrator is going to be uploading many files throughout the day, performing this process many many times. I am wondering if this is a Web Programming no-no, or if this process is common.

I have limited knowledge of web programming and FTP ethics and wanted to check before I spent a lot of time on this only to find out that it's poor design.

The database is going to be used in ASP.NET to generate pages for users to access the files uploaded by the administrator tool.

Thanks everyone,
dave

Allow me to re-explain the situation:

I need to read and write to and from a database on a web server using a VB.NET application. So far as I can tell, there is no way to do this, because you can't link to a web server in the connection string (if I am wrong, please let me know how, the tip would be greatly appreciated).

So my workaround for the situation is to store the database on the web server, and whenever the VB.NET application reads or writes from the database, it downloads and uploads the database file to and from the web server.

I know there will be issues regarding multiple users writing to the database at the same time, but other than that, what other issues might there be? Security? Slow transfer rates? etc.

I just want to know if this workaround is okay? or if this is a bad idea?

Thanks.

Hmm. I think I may have answered my own question: Slow transfer rates...

The database filesize will be ever growing, and constantly downloading and uploading the file just to edit it will be a tedious process for the user (it would make more sense to just use ASP.NET).

ASP.NET is not exactly how I wanted to do it, but will be more efficient in the long run.

Well, thanks everyone for letting me sort out my thoughts...