Data encryption whilst synchronising

jbaggaley

I am about to write an application for our sales reps to remotely synchronise their laptop data with the master database over the web. Because their data contains financial details, I would ideally like to try and make sure that the data transmitted during the synchronisation process is encrypted to prevent easy interception. Does anyone have any good suggestions for how this can be accomplished using the toolkit or is it something that should be done using technologies like HTTPS? Also, will the toolkit work over the web using a secure connection or do I need to consider an alternative strategy for synchronisation?

Thanks

Jon

Brian Donahue

Hi Jon,

I can answer the web part. None of the Toolkit can really be used with Web Services beause the objects aren't serializable for the most part. For instance, you couldn't develop a webservice that returns a populated RedGate.SQLCompare.Database object over the Internet.

If you wanted to actually run a data script over the Internet, you could create an alias using encryption and enable the SQL Server encrypted protocol over the network in the server network utility. You could also simply ensure you have a VPN connection between the application and the server, which would also encrypt any data coming across.

jbaggaley

Thanks for answering so quickly. We are now in discussion about the VPN option because it seems by far the simplest option....

Brian Donahue

Probably the most versatile as well. With a VPN, you can do a lot of useful stuff, especially concerning the Windows domain security!