Serving PDF files with SQL through firewall to ASP.Net

[SqlJunkies User]

Hello all,

I presently have a SQL Server supplying data using ADO.Net and query strings through a designated SQL port (opened on my Cisco Pix firewall) to an IIS server running my ASP.Net applications and then exposing it all to the web.

I want to be able to expose PDF files with the SQL Server that's on this side of the firewall to the IIS ASP.Net application on the other side of the firewall, (hopefully using the same connection strings, port, etc.)

The PDF files are on the machine with the SQL Server.

I need advise on a basic approach to solve this.

Should I BLOB the PDF files (they are big, there are lots of them and they change) ?

Can I just store a link in SQL and somehow reference them, yet send them through my open SQL port?

Should I "Remote" them somehow or send them "streaming" as binary?

It seems there should be some basic design solution here that either SQL Server or .NET provides that I'm not seeing.

All help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Mitch Sanders

 

[William \(Bill\) Vaughn]

At first, I thought you were talking about using Reporting Services to
expose PDF reports (which is easy).
No, I don't recommend putting BLOBs in the database but a link to the BLOB
instead. The problem is being able to address the values across a firewall.
Now that I think of it, Reporting Services makes a lot of sense in your
case.

--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant
Microsoft MVP
www.betav.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________

Hello all,

I presently have a SQL Server supplying data using ADO.Net and query

strings through a designated SQL port (opened on my Cisco Pix firewall) to
an IIS server running my ASP.Net applications and then exposing it all to
the web.

I want to be able to expose PDF files with the SQL Server that's on this

side of the firewall to the IIS ASP.Net application on the other side of the
firewall, (hopefully using the same connection strings, port, etc.)

The PDF files are on the machine with the SQL Server.

I need advise on a basic approach to solve this.

Should I BLOB the PDF files (they are big, there are lots of them and they change) ?

Can I just store a link in SQL and somehow reference them, yet send them through my open SQL port?

Should I "Remote" them somehow or send them "streaming" as binary?

It seems there should be some basic design solution here that either SQL

Server or .NET provides that I'm not seeing.

All help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Mitch Sanders

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